Pastor Albert N. Martin expounds Romans 4:22-25 and Romans 6:1-14, addressing two ultimate questions of life: how can sins be justly pardoned and how can the power of sin be broken? He argues that the resurrection of Jesus Christ, validated by the empty tomb, provides God's thunderous 'Amen' to Christ's finished work on the cross, assuring believers of both justification and liberation from sin's dominion. Martin urges listeners to ground their assurance and hope for sanctification in the objective reality of Christ's resurrection.
Primary Texts
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Romans 4:22-25This passage is central to answering the first ultimate question: how sins can be justly pardoned and accepted as righteous before God, linking it directly to Christ's resurrection.
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Romans 6:1-11This passage is central to answering the second ultimate question: how the power of sin can be broken so that one may live a life pleasing to God, explaining the believer's union with Christ in His death and resurrection.
Introduction: The Resurrection and Ultimate Questions of Life0:21
Ultimate Question 1: How Can My Sins Be Justly Pardoned?2:44
The Answer to Just Pardon: Christ's Death and Resurrection (Romans 4)5:27
Ultimate Question 2: Can the Power of My Sins Be Broken?14:00
The Answer to Sin's Broken Power: Union with Christ's Resurrection (Romans 6)17:16
The Reality of Liberation from Sin's Dominion22:34
Conclusion: The Gospel Resolves Deepest Problems25:39
Key Quotes
“How can a holy and a just God continue to be holy and continue to be just and do anything else other than damn me to eternal perdition?”
“If he is just and the wages of sin is death, if he is just and he will by no means clear the guilty, then we are caught in the jaws of his justice and his holiness and there is no escape.”
“He cried from his cross, it is finished. And God was silent. But three days later the open tomb was God's thunderous. Amen! He is raised for the justification of all of his people.”
“You will never come to any stability in your Christian life until the theology of the open tomb in the face of this ultimate question becomes part of the working stuff of your own conscience, of your own heart, of your own mind as it reflects upon your sin.”
“The Scripture makes, makes it plain that by nature we are the slaves of our sin. We are the servants of our lusts.”
“My friends, this is real and ethical and moral and practical. It means that I not only can stand by Joseph's tomb and say God's amen to Christ's words, it is finished, is to be heard in the empty tomb.”
“I am no longer its rightful slave. I am no longer its lackey and its serf. I am no longer under obligation to obey its dictates.”
Applications
All listeners
Come back to the open tomb and take hold of the truth that Christ was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification, especially when conscious of sin and wondering if mercy is still reserved.
Reckon yourselves to be dead unto sin, but alive unto God in union with Christ Jesus, allowing righteousness and holiness to become the new universe of reference for your life.
Realize that the gospel is God's means to resolve all of your deepest problems.
Contact the church if the broadcast has raised questions, as people are ready to help resolve ultimate questions through Jesus Christ.
A full transcript is available on the
tab. 41 paragraphs, roughly 28 minutes.
Machine transcription
Introduction: The Resurrection and Ultimate Questions of Life
Welcome to God's Word to Our Nation, a weekly broadcast bringing you a message of new life and liberty. This program is brought to you each week by the Grace Baptist Church of Canton. We believe that the gospel is God's word to this and every nation. Through the gospel, God has shown that our deepest need, the need for freedom from the guilt and power of sin, can be fully met by His Son, Jesus Christ.
Here now is pastor, author, and conference speaker, Albert N. Martin, with this week's message.
On our last program, we considered together the importance of the resurrection in the gospel message. Today, my topic is the relationship of the resurrection of Jesus to what I am calling the ultimate questions of life. I want to take the facts of the gospel that we considered on our last program and relate them to these ultimate questions of your life. Now, these ultimate questions are not, is it time to buy a new car or should I get married and to whom?
No, as important as those types of questions are in their place, an ultimate question is one such as Job, the ancient patriarch, asked when he exclaimed, if a man dies, shall he live again? These are the questions that creep into our minds when we withdraw, when we withdraw from our frantic day-to-day pace and begin to listen to the quiet rumblings of conscience. And standing outside of the empty tomb, we find ourselves in a school of wisdom where we can learn God's answers to all of our ultimate questions. The rest of those ultimate questions is this. Can my sins be justly pardoned and can I be forgiven? Can my sins be accepted as righteous before God?
Ultimate Question 1: How Can My Sins Be Justly Pardoned?
Can my sins be justly pardoned and can I be accepted as righteous before God? Once we begin to take the testimony of the Bible seriously and once we begin to take the testimony of our own consciences seriously, one of the most burning issues that the human mind will then be forced to wrestle with is this issue. How can a holy and a just God continue to be holy and continue to be just and do anything else other than damn me to eternal perdition? If God is holy, the scripture says so holy, that he cannot look upon iniquity. And if he is just, so just that he declares that he will by no means clear the guilty. And if I am the sinner that my own consciences accuses me that I am, and if I am the sinner that the Bible bears witness that I am, then how can God be just and holy
and ever do anything other than righteously and justly condemn me for my sins and consign me to that place prepared for the devil and his angels?
Humanly speaking, if God could somehow neuter the demands of his holiness in justice, there might be room for pardon. But if he is to remain holy and just, how can he pardon? Guilty sinners. If he is just and the wages of sin is death, if he is just and he will by no means clear the guilty, then we are caught in the jaws of his justice and his holiness and there is no escape.
That's an ultimate question. How can my sins be justly pardoned? And can I indeed be accepted as righteous before God while God still remains God? Well, that ultimate question is answered in the classroom convened outside of Joseph's empty tomb.
The Answer to Just Pardon: Christ's Death and Resurrection (Romans 4)
Turn with me to Romans chapter 4.
Romans chapter 4.
In this section of the epistle where Paul has been demonstrating that God has always pardoned and accepted sinners on the basis, of his own grace and the work of his son received by faith alone, speaking of the fact that it was in this way that Abraham was justified, that is, justly pardoned and accepted as righteous before God, we read in verse 22, wherefore, Romans 4, 22, wherefore also it was reckoned unto him for righteousness. Now it was not written for his sake alone that it was reckoned unto him, but for our sake also unto whom it shall be reckoned who believe on him that raised Jesus our Lord from the dead. And here the fact of the resurrection is brought into focus. Who believe on him that raised Jesus our Lord from the dead. Who was delivered up for our trespasses and was raised for our justification.
Now in this text we are told that Jesus was delivered up to death for or on account of our trespasses. If God is to righteously pardon sinners, sin, he must be justly punished. And in the person of our substitute, the Lord Jesus, God punished our sins. Jesus voluntarily assumed the place of the substitute.
And having assumed that place, there was laid upon him, the prophet says, the iniquity of us all. And in that act of being delivered up for our trespasses, delivered over to the powers of darkness, delivered up to the justice of God, delivered over to the wrath of God against our sins. In the midst of that transaction, Jesus, among the several things he said from the cross, cried prior to committing his spirit into the hands of his Father, saying, I have done all that needs to be done that righteous pardon might be extended to sinners. The wrath of God has been exhausted. The justice of God for a broken law has been satisfied. Jesus exclaimed, Jesus exclaimed, Jesus exclaimed, Jesus exclaimed, Jesus exclaimed, It is finished.
But now our text says, the same Jesus our Lord, who was raised from the dead, having been delivered up for our trespasses, was raised for our justification. He was raised in order that we might be justified and declared righteous. For in his resurrection there was not only the validation of all of his personal claims, Romans chapter 1 declared to be the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead, but there was the validation of all of his work on behalf of sinners, and his resurrection placed him in a living state so that the Lord, the living Christ, could be the object of the faith of needy sinners. Commenting on this verse, or this part of the verse,
Hendrickson very helpfully comments, he was delivered for or on account of our trespasses. This looks backwards and means that our trespasses made it necessary for him to be delivered up while he was raised or on account of our trespasses. The account of our justification looks forward and indicates he was raised in order to assure us that in the sight of God we are indeed without sin. In other words, Christ's resurrection has as its purpose to bring to light the fact that all those who acknowledge Jesus as their Lord and Savior have entered into us as sinners, state of righteousness in the eyes of God. The Father, by raising Jesus from the dead, assures us that the atoning sacrifice has been accepted, hence our sins forgiven. And so when we wrestle with that ultimate question of the forgiveness of our sins, the answer is not to be found by turning inward upon our own subjective frame of mind or spirit.
It is not even to be turned inward to see what the measure of our love to Christ is. It is to be turned outward and over to an empty tomb in Palestine and to stand on this unshakable ground. He who was delivered up for our trespasses. Was raised for our justification. He cried from his cross, it is finished. And God was silent. But three days later the open tomb was God's thunderous. Amen! He is raised for the justification of all of his people. Some of you will never come to any stability in
your Christian life. You will never come to any stability in your Christian life. You will never come to any stability in your Christian life until the theology of the open tomb in the face of this ultimate question becomes part of the working stuff of your own conscience, of your own heart, of your own mind as it reflects upon your sin. And whenever you are conscious of your sin, and whenever you wonder, can it be that if I come to God again, for this sin and these sins to which I've had to come to him hundreds or thousands of times, can there be mercy still reserved for me? Can my God his wrath forbear me the chief of sinners spare? We need to come back to the open tomb and there take hold of this truth. He was delivered up for our trespasses. And raised for our justification. Amen! He is raised
for our justification. And whenever you are conscious of your sin, and whenever you are conscious of your sin, and whenever you are conscious of your sin, you are raised for our justification. The first ultimate question that is answered there by Joseph's empty tomb is the question, can my sins be justly pardoned? And can I be accepted as righteous before God? But then there is a second ultimate question, a question which every convicted must sooner or later ask himself. And that question is, can I be accepted as righteous before God? And that question is, can I be accepted as righteous before God? And that question is, can I be accepted as righteous before God? Whereишь the last atonement? Is the best for?
Ultimate Question 2: Can the Power of My Sins Be Broken?
There is a better answer to such a question back which is even more equal. It is a better answer. It is a better answer for the conviction of sin never stops with the guilt of sin, but with the power and with the pollution of sin. When a man, a woman, boy or girl is convicted by the Holy Spirit of their sin, he is not only concerned about the bad that he has done, but concerned about the bad that he is. He when we take seriously what the Word of God says about us, one of the ultimate questions that presses in upon us is not only, can my sins be justly pardoned, and can I be accepted as righteous before God? And we find the answer in Joseph's empty tomb. But the second ultimate question is, can the power of my sins be broken, so that I may live a life well-pleasing to God? Can the power of my sins be broken, so that I may live a life well-pleasing to God?
For the testimony of the Bible is that I am the slave of sin. Jesus said it in John 8, 34, Whoso commits sin is the bond-slave of sin. And then, in a more extensive way, in the sixth chapter of Romans, the Apostle describes us in our natural state several times as the bond-slaves, the servants of sin itself. For example, Romans chapter 6 and verse 17, But thanks be to God that whereas ye were servants, ye were servants of sin. Verse 19, I speak after the manner of men, because of the infirmity of your flesh, as you presented your members as servants to uncleanness, and to iniquity unto iniquity. Verse 20, When you were servants of sin, you were free in regard of righteousness. The Scripture makes, makes it plain that by nature we are the slaves of our sin.
We are the servants of our lusts. And when we take seriously what the Word of God says about us, and begin to take seriously the depth of the power of sin over us, then we cry out, Can the power of my sins be broken, so that I may live a life well-pleasing to God? And the answer again is found in that school that is pitched outside of Joseph's empty tomb. For this question is one with which the Apostle wrestles in this entire sixth chapter of Romans.
The Answer to Sin's Broken Power: Union with Christ's Resurrection (Romans 6)
And I ask you to follow as I read now the opening verses of that chapter.
What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin? That is, in the willful, deliberate practice of sin as a lifestyle, that grace may abound. God forbid.
We who died to sin, how shall we any longer live therein? We who died to sin, how shall we now live in sin as a lifestyle and an overall pattern of moral existence? Or are you ignorant that all of us, all we who were baptized into Jesus Christ, were baptized into His death? We were buried, therefore, with Him through baptism into death, that like as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life. And in the context, what is the newness of life? It is life no longer, it is life no longer lived under the dominion of sin. It is life no longer lived in the realm of sin as our native context and native air.
When a man dies, he is radically severed from that context in which he carried out his life. He no longer sees the sun and feels the warmth of its rays. He no longer sees the rustling trees and he no longer interacts with his fellow human beings. Death severs him from the realm in which he lived.
We are told that sin was the realm in which we lived, but we died to sin in union with Christ that we might live in newness of life. Life lived in relationship to the realities of righteousness and truth and holiness. For if we have become united, with Him in the likeness of His death, we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old man, the totality of what we were in Adam, devoid of the grace of God, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away so that we should no longer be in bondage to sin. For he that hath died is justified or released from sin. But if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more. Death hath no more dominion over Him.
For the death that He died, He died unto sin once, but the life that He liveth, He liveth unto God, even so reckon ye also yourselves to be dead unto sin, but alive unto God in, that is, in union with Christ Jesus. And without attempting anything like a careful exposition of this passage, surely you feel the overarching drift of its teaching when it comes to this question. Can the power of mightiness of my sin be so broken that I may live a life pleasing to God? Not the life of a glorified saint, but the life of a truly transformed man or woman here on this earth, that just as truly as the realm of sin was my native universe of reference, the standards of sinful passions and the standards of a sinful world, and the standards of my own sinful heart dictated the use of my hands and feet and eyes and energy and time. I presented my members instruments of unrighteousness unto sin. So now righteousness and holiness, the standards of God,
the standards of His Word, the standard of likeness to Christ and conformity to Christ, though not perfectly, impinging on every total motive and disposition and word and action, become just as really the universe in which I live as sin was the former universe in which I live. Is that possible? Can the power of my sins be so broken that I can live a life pleasing to God? Well, the answer is found by Joseph's empty tomb.
The Reality of Liberation from Sin's Dominion
Yes. For as surely, as Jesus Christ died to sin, as He died for sin, and having died, He dies no more, but has risen to newness of life, the apostle says, when I am by faith united to Christ. The dynamics, the very virtue of Christ's death to sin enters into my moral constitution and the very virtue, The virtue of the power of the resurrection of Christ enters my moral constitution, and I am now raised to do what? To walk, verse 4, to walk in newness of life. People say, well, this is positional and given all kinds of names. My friends, this is real and ethical and moral and practical. It means that I not only can stand by Joseph's tomb and say God's amen to Christ's words, it is finished, is to be heard in the empty tomb.
I can be justly and righteously forgiven and accepted as righteous. But I can stand by that empty tomb and say, as Christ has exhausted the demands of God's law against sin, sin no longer has righteous claims over me. I am no longer its rightful slave. I am no longer its lackey and its serf. I am no longer under obligation to obey its dictates.
In union with Christ, I've been liberated. From all of its demands, by dying with Christ, to its demands, and now rising with Christ in newness of life. Am I talking to someone who sits here tonight, who has known what it is to forge chains that have so cut themselves, as it were, into the very stuff of your soul, that you despair that they can ever be broken? Amen.
The great question that you wrestle with day after day is not, is there enough grace and mercy in the death of Christ to forgive these sins? But I know enough of my Bible to know that a forgiven sinner is a liberated sinner, and I have no hope that I can be liberated. My chains are so many, I have forged them for so long. The links are so large.
My friend. Amen. Joseph's empty tomb says, there is liberty for the captives. For he was anointed in order to do what?
Conclusion: The Gospel Resolves Deepest Problems
He was anointed. The Spirit of the Lord was upon him, that he might proclaim liberty to the captives and the opening of the prison to those that are bound. As we bring today's program to a close, I trust that if you have seen nothing else, that you have been brought to realize that the gospel is not just a collection of abstract theories about God and man. Rather, the gospel is God's means to resolve all of your deepest problems. If this broadcast has begun to raise questions for you, please feel free to contact the church, whose name and number we will be giving out in just a moment. You will find people there who are...
ready to talk with you, and to help you see how your ultimate questions can be resolved by Jesus Christ.
That brings us to the conclusion of this week's broadcast. Our speaker has been Pastor Albert N. Martin, and you've been listening to God's Word to Our Nation. If you would like to hear today's message again, or share it with a friend, it is available on audio cassette.
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This transcript was generated by automated speech recognition and may contain errors.
It is provided for study and reference only; the audio recording is the authoritative source.
Passages Expounded
Romans 4:22-25
This passage is central to answering the first ultimate question: how sins can be justly pardoned and accepted as righteous before God, linking it directly to Christ's resurrection.
Romans 6:1-11
This passage is central to answering the second ultimate question: how the power of sin can be broken so that one may live a life pleasing to God, explaining the believer's union with Christ in His death and resurrection.
Texts Expounded
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Martin directs listeners to Romans 4 to explain how God pardons and accepts sinners by grace through faith, specifically focusing on Abraham's justification.
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This passage is expounded to demonstrate that Christ was delivered for our trespasses and raised for our justification, linking the resurrection to the forgiveness of sins.
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Martin introduces Romans 6 as the chapter where Paul wrestles with the question of breaking sin's power.
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Martin reads and expounds these verses to explain that believers have died to sin in union with Christ and are raised to walk in newness of life.
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Martin expounds these verses to show that our old man was crucified with Christ, freeing us from bondage to sin, and that we are to reckon ourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus.