Death of Christ

Review: The Context of No Condemnation

0:02 I want you to turn in your own Bibles to the 8th chapter of Paul's letter to the church at Rome, Romans chapter 8, and for the second time today we will focus our attention upon one of the most profound questions and most profound answers to any question found anywhere in all of the Word of God. Those of you who are with us this evening and were not with us this morning, what happened is I got halfway through the sermon this morning and it was close to 12.30 and so I had to quit and promised the folk that I would seek to not complete the sermon but complete this morning's part and finish up the whole, God willing, next Lord's Day morning. And so for the benefit of those who are with us tonight who were not with us this morning, it's obvious I cannot go back over and give extensively the ground that was covered, though I would like to do so. Because I would not have...

1:03 I would not have spent as much time setting, as it were, the whole surrounding of this text if I did not feel it was necessary to a proper understanding of it, but I will try in about five minutes to condense about 50 minutes of exposition from this portion.

1:22 As we meet any day, but particularly on this so-called Easter day, there is perhaps no more profound religious question that can exercise the mind of every Christian. If you are a fellow girl, man, woman in this place, then this very simple question, how can sinful man be right with God? Or to use the language of the text we're studying, Romans 8.34, who is he that condemneth?

1:52 How can sinful man come to a place where he is confident that there is no condemnation for him in spite of his sin?

2:05 We saw that this question is raised by the Apostle in verse 34 in a very unique context. He stated in verses 29 and 30 of this chapter that God himself has purposed nothing less for his people than their entire conformity to the likeness of Jesus Christ his Son.

2:29 Or in verse 29 we read, Whom he foreknew, that is, whom God regarded with distinguishing, with special love and purpose, he also foreordained, that is, marked out to be conformed to the image of his Son. This whole matter of salvation is God's idea in the first place, and woe be unto us if we accept the idea from God, but don't accept the end of that salvation from the God who conceived. And the God who conceived the idea of rescuing sinful men in terms of his own sovereign love and mercy has envisioned in his purpose of salvation nothing less than taking rebel sons of Adam that are totally unlike his son, and when he's done with them, having them many brethren amongst the elder brethren, as the text says, that Christ himself may be the firstborn, among many brethren. God is determined to impart the family likeness, the moral image of Jesus Christ. And since that is his goal, he is committed to accomplish that goal. Hence, we read in the next text, And whom he foreordained, that is, whom he marked out with this end in view,

3:51 he called, broke down everything in their own hearts and in the world around them that would keep them. From being initiated into the orbit, into the sphere of salvation, he effectually called them, and whom he called he justified, and because his purpose is so certain, he puts the future aspect in the past tense, whom he justified, then he also glorified. Hence, in the light of this great principle, that God is committed to a salvation that envisions nothing less than the total conformity of every believer, to the image of Christ, the apostle stands back and asks the question of verse 31, What shall we say then to these things? If God is for us, for us in the sense of Romans 8, 29 and 30, not for us in the sense of this evangelical travesty, that God votes for your salvation, the devil votes for it, and you cast the deciding vote, that's tantamount to blasphemy. If God is for us, not for us, for us in his foreknowledge, when he marked us out and set his love upon us, for us in predestination, for us in calling, for us in justification, for us in glorification, if this God is committed to this kind of salvation,

5:19 who is against us? In other words, who will cut across God's path and say, Now wait a minute, God, you can't accomplish what you've set out to do. If God is for us, who is against us? He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?

5:42 Now it's in that setting that he asks these three lesser questions. Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? And he answers it. The question of our text, who is he that condemneth?

5:54 And he answers it. The question of verse 35, Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? And he answers it. So in that setting of the commitment of God to the salvation of his people, the apostle makes this tremendous declaration, Who is he that condemneth?

6:12 And so we spent a few minutes analyzing the question. It's one in which Paul, as it were, is facing the whole created universe of moral, intelligent beings, men, devils, angels, and God himself, and says, Where in all of that sphere will anyone be found to lay, any condemnation to the feet or upon the head of a child of God? Now remember, this is a man who understood who God was, who was not only a God of love, but a God of wrath, as he declared him in chapter 1 in verse 18. The God who will judge every breach of his law, chapter 3, 19 and 20.

6:49 Here's a man who's conscious even when he writes these words. Who is he that condemneth that there is still a great residue of sin within his own heart? Here's the man who wrote chapter 7. The good that I would, I do not.

7:02 The evil that I would not, that I do. Oh, wretched man that I am. And yet this man, facing the full biblical reality of the doctrine of sin, the wrath of God against sin, the presence of indwelling sin, dares to say, Who is he that condemneth? Who will condemn me?

7:21 I stand acquitted before Almighty God. Then we began, and this brings us to the last part of our review, to see that his answer to that, that question focuses upon the person and the work of Jesus Christ. For notice his answer, Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died.

7:42 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.

8:17 The only reason he's got peace and sense of euphoria is that he's out of touch with reality. And I would venture to say, I'm speaking to someone in this building tonight, who came into this building, feeling, oh, I'm fine, no condemnation to me. And yet you're ignorant of the Christ of Holy Scripture. My friend, if you're ignorant of the Christ of Scripture, whom Paul calls Christ Jesus, the anointed Messiah, the Messiah who leaps from the pages of this book, and you just have some kind of a nebulous, woozy, undefined feeling of attachment to the man Jesus, you have no grounds to believe that you're out from under condemnation.

8:58 Until the Spirit of God, has brought you into personal acquaintance with the Christ of Scripture. And then we close with the observation that all of Paul's confidence was not only focused in this unique person, but in the distinct redemptive acts by which he accomplished the salvation of his people. You have four of them. Christ's death, crucifixion, he rose, resurrection, at the right hand of God, exaltation, who intercedes, intercession.

9:27 So Paul's confidence was a, deeply theological confidence. And the idea that, well, theology is for advanced saints or men with big academic eggheads that can hardly hold their heads up when they walk around. But us common folks, we just have got to love Jesus. Nothing could be further than the truth.

9:47 He's writing to ex-slaves when he writes to Rome. He's writing to people of the artisan class. He's writing to common people. And he says to these believers, if you would have my confidence, then you must not only be acquainted with the Christ of Scripture, but you must understand the significance of those four great pivotal acts upon which your salvation rests.

The Relationship Between Christ's Death and Confidence

10:11 And there we close this morning. Now, our review is done. Let's seek to open up the first two of these acts. They are the past acts.

10:21 It is Christ that died, yea, rather, that is risen from the dead. Now, what is the relationship between Paul's confidence, breaking forth in the question, Who is he that condemneth? What is the relationship between that question and the statement, It is Christ that died? Well, it's obvious that it was not a relationship resting upon the mere fact of Christ's death, which led Paul to this confidence.

10:56 It is not the mere knowledge that in some way, the death of Christ, Christ was connected with our forgiveness. Rather, it was penetrating into the heart of that mystery, coming to understand the true significance of that death that gave birth to the triumphant question, who is there that condemned? Now, what did Paul understand about the death of Christ that led him to that confidence? And let me suggest there were at least three things, and this is only suggestive, it is not exhaustive. This could mean literally weeks and months of exposition to open it up in any measure commensurate with the biblical data. But I want to suggest tonight there were three things that Paul understood about the death of Christ that led him to this burst of confident exclamation. First of all, he understood the position in which Christ died. Secondly, the disposition of the Father towards him when he died, and thirdly, the gracious provisions acquired by that death. First of all, then, when Paul says, it is Christ that died, he

The Position in Which Christ Died: Surety and Substitute

12:13 is referring, first of all, to his understanding of the position in which Christ died. Now, how do we know this? Well, all you need to do is go back a few lines in your Bibles. Notice, He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all. Put these words together.

12:37 Delivered for. Now, it is nothing less than the biblical doctrine of substitution. Christ for us. Christ in our place. That is an understanding of the position in which Christ died, which was the position of a surety and a substitute. And the apostle Paul reveled in this concept again and again in his writings. It comes to the fore, and I will only give a few by way of example. That well-known passage in 2 Corinthians chapter 5, For he, God, hath made him Christ to be what? Sin for, that is, in behalf of

13:28 In the place of us, Galatians 2.20, the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself up for me, in the place of myself, Galatians 3.13, Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for, in behalf of us. And we could multiply quotations which give us to understand that when Paul contemplated the death of Christ, he always contemplated that death in terms of the unique position Christ had in that death.

14:07 The Apostle Paul understood the biblical truth that in eternity past, there was, for lack of a better term, a contract between the Father and the Son, concerning the salvation of the elect of God, in which the Son pledges in the presence of the Father, saying, Father, all that your law and all that your justice will demand of those whom you have chosen unto life, I will stand in their place, both to perform and to pay to the last farthing.

14:47 Hence, when the Lord Jesus dies upon the cross, He dies there in the position of a substitute, giving unto God all that was demanded by God on behalf of His people. And it is an understanding of that simple but fundamental gospel principle that will cause a person fully facing what Paul faced, the universality of sin. Whatsoever things the law saith, it saith to them that are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world become guilty before God. I say you can face that realistic assessment of yourself as one whose mouth is shut in the presence of God. Face with Paul the realism of your own remaining corruption. Woe is me! In my flesh dwelleth no good thing.

15:42 And yet you may say, who is he that condemneth? It is Christ. That's it. And you are given to understand by the Holy Spirit, and by that same Spirit enabled to believingly embrace the position in which He died was the position of a surety and a substitute.

16:05 He died in my place.

16:10 Oh, you say, that's fundamental, simple, basic, elementary gospel truth. You mean I came all the way out tonight to hear that simple thing? Ah, my friend, listen. The last place.

16:21 The last place a natural man will ever betake himself for refuge is to his surety and his substitute.

16:29 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.

16:58 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 his people, only that person will be able to say in the words of verse 34, Who is he that condemneth? He is Christ. Christ that died. He died as my substitute.

17:59 He died as my surety. The debt is wholly paid. May I press upon your conscience the very simple question tonight? When you confess your faith in the fact that Christ died, do you in that confession understand what Paul understood?

18:18 Namely, the position in which Christ died? Do you see him as your substitute? Meeting all the demands of God? Do you dare to lay both hands of confidence upon the head of Christ?

18:35 And not even a finger reaching back to your own merit, your own resolutions, your own repentance, your own reformation, your own anything? Do you? Or is there a sneaking suspicion that maybe there are few threads in the fabric of Christ's righteousness that you've got to add, or that garment won't be quite,

19:01 Ah, dear friend, if it's anything other than Christ in the position of a surety and substitute, you've missed the heart of the gospel, and you'll never be able to say biblically, Who is he that condemneth? My friend, in the words of the hymn, Could your tears forever flow? Could your zeal no longer know? These for sin cannot atone.

19:26 Your best efforts are as stinking rags in the nostrils of God. Isaiah 64, in verse 4, All our righteousnesses, not our bad things, our best things, are as filthy rags in his sight. Well, in the second place, when Paul said, It is Christ that died, thus giving him the confidence that there was no condemnation, it was not only a confession, Christ died, seeing in it the position in which he died, but secondly, understanding the disposition of the Father towards him, in his death.

The Disposition of the Father Towards Christ in His Death

20:05 Where do we find that? Well, he stated it again up in the text preceding. He that spared not his own son, but delivered him up. What do those words mean?

20:21 He spared him not. He delivered him up. This speaks of the disposition in the activity of the Father with reference to the Son, in the act of the Son's death, So when Paul says, Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died.

20:40 It is not a death separated in the Apostle's thinking from the statement he's just made. It's a death that is permeated with his understanding, not only of the position he bore as substitute, but the disposition of the Father towards him in that death as a substitute. That disposition is bound up in these words, He spared him not. When you spare someone, what do you do?

21:05 When a criminal stands before a judge and pleads, Spare me. What does he say? He's saying, Don't give me everything that is justly due to me because of my crime.

21:17 That's what it means. And this text says that he spared him not. In other words, the Father's disposition in the act of the Son's death was a disposition unmixed with mercy. It was a disposition of pure and infallible, inflexible justice.

21:38 He spared him not. And what was the evidence of that? The next phrase, But delivered him. Delivered him up.

21:48 Gave him up. To what? To everything that his law demanded. And what did his law demand?

21:54 The wages of sin. His death. Hence, when the surety and the substitute stands on behalf of all his sinful ones, that law does not change its demands. It demands of him what it would demand of them.

22:12 Death. And what is the essence of death? Sin's curse is death. And the essence of that death is abandonment by God.

22:22 The hell of hells is found in those awful words uttered by the judge. Depart from me. And it was that which our Lord felt and experienced in those awful hours upon the cross when God, as it were, visually demonstrated in the physical world by the shrouding of the heavens what was transpiring in the invisible spiritual world outside of the physical sight of men's eyes until toward the close of those three dark hours the Son of God cried out, My God, my God, why hast thou what? Abandoned me.

23:05 Why? Hast thou forsaken me? In other words, My God, my God, why have I been plunged into the very billows of hell itself which is abandonment by God? And he felt the pangs of it and he shrunk from it and said reverently for the first time in all eternity in a mystery that eternity will never unlock, the Son lost conscious communion with his own Father.

23:38 And felt the pangs of divine abandonment. Hence the Apostle glories in this awesome truth. He says in Galatians 3.13, Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law.

23:53 How? By becoming a curse for us. You see, he was conscious of the Father's disposition to the Son in his death. It was not a disposition of indifference.

24:05 Not a disposition of just reluctance. Men want to crucify you. Let them do it. It's sort of a necessary evil.

24:11 And I'll just turn away and wait till the dastardly deed is done and then I'll raise you from the dead. No, no. Paul saw that whatever the chief priest and the scribes and the Pharisees were doing was relatively inconsequential. That the real meaning of the cross was found in this.

24:29 When he was lifted up as our surety and our substitute, he was being the object of the Father's curse. Cursed is everyone that hangeth on a tree. Listen to his statement again in 2 Corinthians chapter 5. He, God, hath made him Christ to be sin for us.

24:51 I've never dared even to attempt to expound that phrase. Dare you even meditate upon it?

24:58 For he made him to be sin.

25:04 What's that mean? I don't know.

25:08 But it says that our Lord was so identified with our sin in the hours of his suffering, so identified that the Father's treatment of him was the treatment of infinite holiness in the presence of all the foul sin of man.

25:28 His disposition was one of positive anger and wrath. And yet, mister of mysteries, he never loved him more than when he was laying down his life where he said, Herein does my Father love me because I lay down my life for the sheep. Paul says in the early, earlier part of this 8th chapter, look at verse 3, for what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin. What did he do?

26:00 Condemned sin in the flesh. When did the Father condemn sin in the flesh? In the flesh of his own Son. When his own Son is hanging between earth and heaven as the substitute of his people.

26:13 The disposition of the Father, I say again, was not one of neutrality. It was one of positive wrath and anger. He spared him not, delivered him not, condemned sin in his flesh. Now do you see why the Apostle can say, Who is he that condemns?

26:30 God has already done his work of condemning all who are in his Son. He has no work of condemning left. He exhausted it when he condemned sin in the person of his own dear Son. For you see, as sinners, it is with God that we have to do as guilty criminals.

26:54 But if the judge has exhausted his wrath and his anger against sin, then there is none left for us. My dear friends, that's the heart of the meaning of that, I don't know what adjective to use, that awesome, moving, tragic scene of Gethsemane. One that we tend again to gloss over, but which we must, must face in all of its awesome reality. The Son of God faces that cup.

27:31 And that cup, the draining of which could only come to pass by His being the object of the Father's positive wrath and anger in suffering upon the cross. The Son of God contemplating it shrinks and says, Oh my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me. Nevertheless, not what I will, but what Thou wilt.

28:02 And finally the Lord submits, and He comes forth like a king,

28:07 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.

28:42 What can the child of God say? The child of God can say, Look, you don't need to turn it up. Tell me if there's anything in it. I know that that cup is dry as a bone, because the Son of God had it placed to His lips by His own Father at the cross.

28:57 There at the cross He drank not half of it, not three, not three quarters of it, not ninety-nine percent of it, but He held His mouth open until the Father Himself said, My Son, the last drop has been poured into Your holy being. And He gave the Son the sense that there was no more. How He did, I do not know, and it was that precise moment that Jesus cried, It is.

29:29 He could have just as well cried, The cup!

29:36 There is not a drop.

29:41 The hymn writer understood that when he penned those beautiful words in a hymn that I wish was in our hymnals. O Christ, what burdens bowed Thy head. Our load was laid on Thee. Thou stoodest in the sinner's stead.

29:57 That's the position. Dits bear all ill for me. A victim led, Thy blood was shed. Now there's no load for me.

30:06 Death and the curse were in our cup. What?

30:11 What would the Father's disposition be to us had Christ not interposed? Death and the curse? Abandonment! Which hell alone could even begin to meet out upon us.

30:25 Death and the curse were in our cup. O Christ, was full for Thee. But Thou hast drained the last dark drop. Tis empty now for me.

30:37 That bitter cup, love drank it up. Now blessings draught for me. You see, beloved, the very cup that was full of the bitterness of hell for Christ is the very cup that now is brimful to overflow with all the blessings of the gospel for you and for me. He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things between, all things between, who say that condemneth?

31:17 He strained the cup, the cup which only the Father could fill. And since the Father filled it for Him and He drained it, there is not another drop to be placed within it. I say this kind of confidence is not based upon some vague notions that somehow Jesus' death is in some way related to me and my problems and my hang-ups. Away with this travesty on the gospel that by vague, definite, unbiblical terms death and all the rest are not out.

31:51 The heart of the gospel and robs men of the triumphant joy of true gospel faith. Paul says, who will condemn?

The Gracious Provisions Acquired by Christ's Death: Destruction of Death

32:04 Understanding the position in which he died, one of a substitute. All that was due me he bore. Understanding secondly the disposition of the Father towards him in death, one in which he spared him not, poured out his wrath upon him. And then thirdly, when Paul said, it is Christ that died, it is Christ that died, it is Christ that died, it is Christ that died, it is Christ that died, giving birth to his triumphant, confident assertion that none would condemn.

32:30 He also understood the provisions which this death secured.

32:38 Romans 8-2 says, the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and of death. Sin is the transgression of the law. The transgression of the law demands death. Death having done its work, the law is satisfied.

32:56 There are no more claims upon the people of God. Death is the continual monument that you can't escape the reality of sin. Men try to cauterize their consciences, put the salve of religious veneer over the rotten core of their own corruption, but they still have to drive by graveyards. And even when they've dressed them up into crematoriums, there's still a sign.

33:28 Men just wish they could somehow drive all burying places underground and out of sight. Why? Because it's the constant monument that you can't reason away the fact of sin.

33:42 The wages of sin is death. When Paul is proving the universality of sin by virtue of our involvement in Adam's sin in Romans 5, he uses as his most telling blow to any idea that sin is not universal this very fact, the universality, the universality of death. That's why he says, it's by one man's sin entered into the world and death passed upon all men for that all sinned. And then he goes on to say, even in the case of those who did not sin as Adam did, that is, consciously rebel against a clear commandment.

34:15 And most commentators believe this is a reference to infants. Even in the case of infants who do not, as it were, rear back in their hind legs and say, who is God that I should obey Him? Death still reigns in the realm of infants. And so Paul argues the universality of death is constant monument of the universality of sin.

34:34 You may not like that. There may be some of you who say, the preacher's talking about foreboding things. Death, hell, let's talk about pleasant things. Easter lilies,

34:45 and new hats, new clothes. Let's not...

34:47 My friend, listen. Listen. You wrench Easter out of the context of the ugly reality of death.

34:58 You've wrenched it out of the only context in which it can be understood.

35:03 And Paul understood this, that the provision of the death of Christ was nothing less than the very destruction of death itself. That's why he could say, who is he that condemneth? Who will consign me to death? That is, to separation from God.

The Mini-Resurrection as a Sacrament of Death's Destruction

35:20 And even the death I'll experience in this physical body is but a temporary thing, for I'm confident that I shall rise at the resurrection. And as I suggested this morning, I think it's in that setting that there is some understanding of that very unusual, unusual narrative of Matthew. And I would ask you to turn to Matthew 27 for a moment, 27 for a moment, please.

35:46 Matthew chapter 27.

35:58 And for my own devotions this morning, I skipped my regular devotional reading and read the account of the last hours of Christ on the cross and Matthew's account of the resurrection. When I came to this very unusual passage, Matthew 27 and verses 51 and following, I turned to my good friend, Bishop Ryle, and his expository thoughts in the Gospels, and he had a wonderful statement on the abandonment of Christ in the hours of his agony, a wonderful statement on the rending of the veil, a wonderful statement, I believe it was on the confession of the centurion. But no comment on this very unusual insertion of Matthew into his narrative. And behold, the veil of the temple was rent in two from the top to the bottom, and the earth did quake, and the rocks were rent, and the tombs were opened, referring primarily, probably, to the type of tomb in which our Lord was buried, hewn out of a rock on the side of a hill somewhere. These were opened. And many bodies of the saints that had fallen asleep were raised and coming forth out of the tombs after His resurrection, the indication seeming to be that they were raised the moment the veil was rent.

37:23 When our Lord breathed His last and said, it is finished, they found themselves with their spirits rejoined to their bodies. And what they did for those three days, I don't know. The Bible is silent, but it says, after His resurrection, they entered into the holy city and appeared unto many. Now, what's behind this?

37:45 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.

37:56 And you've seen him put in a sepulcher.

38:00 And you've been there trying to comfort his wife and the relatives and loved ones. And a few weeks have passed. And they're just beginning to get adjusted to the shock of his absence. And lo and behold, you're sitting down for coffee or tea, if you are good British friends.

38:16 And Uncle Harry comes walking through the door.

38:22 And you look down at your tea or your coffee and say, is that what I've been drinking here? And you look at it. And you go white as a sheet. And you pinch yourself.

38:35 Harry. And he smiles and says, yeah, that's Uncle Harry. It can't be Uncle Harry. Ah, but it is Uncle Harry.

38:42 But Uncle Harry, we went to your funeral three weeks ago. It can't be you. It's just feel me. It is me.

38:49 Pinch me. Look at me. See the scar here, you know? Look.

38:52 See, I was bald back then. See, it's me. This is Uncle Harry. And then another house three places down.

38:58 A sorrowing widow still wearing her black garb. Still weeping herself to sleep night after night. Waking up in the middle of the night feeling the ache and the pain of the loneliness of the one with whom she shared life lo these many years. And in the midst of all that pain and agony, she's scared when she hears her door open wondering if someone is taking advantage of her widowhood and is going to plunder her house.

39:24 And when she lights a candle to see who it is, she turns white. And she says, no, it must be an apparition. I think of him so often. It just must be that I see him.

39:34 And then he clasps her in his arms and hugs her to his bosom. And he says, it's me. It's me. Isn't this what it says?

39:42 Am I reading something? Isn't this what it says? After his resurrection, they entered into the holy city and appeared unto many. So one morning, they go down to the marketplace and somebody there is selling potatoes and they look up and this fellow's been a customer of this woman for years.

40:01 And they drop all their potatoes and they go running down the street saying, there's something gone crazy around here. Dead people walking. They're walking through the streets. Isn't that what the text says?

40:10 They appeared unto many. Can you feel and live the situation? What a commotion this must have created. Then, sooner or later, when people get over the shock of it, they say, Uncle Harry, wait a minute now.

40:23 What happened to you? Well, he says, you know that three weeks ago I died. And you put me in that particular sepulcher, didn't you? Yes, Uncle Harry, we put you there.

40:32 We remember it very vividly. And he said, just about three days ago,

40:41 the strangest thing happened. I found myself looking around in that dark sepulcher, awake, and my spirit had rejoined my body.

40:51 And after three days,

40:56 I came out, made my way back to your house, and here I am. Uncle Harry, when did that happen? It happened to me on Friday.

41:05 About what time, Uncle Harry? Well, it seemed that though there was a little bit of light yet left, I imagine it was sometime late afternoon. Uncle Harry, do you think it was somewhere maybe around, three or four o'clock in the afternoon? He said, yeah, probably just about that time.

41:21 He said it was the strangest thing because though it was light out,

41:29 there was a sense that the light had just broken in upon an awful darkness.

41:35 And they began to compare notes. And they say, you remember when all of Jerusalem was shrouded in blackness at the middle of the day that Friday from noon until three o'clock? And then at the end of that time, the blackness left. And that's just about the time the chief priests tell us that Jesus of Nazareth said some strange words when he was hanging upon the cross.

41:59 Rather than just as it were have his life ebb out by degrees, he gave a shout of triumph and said, it is!

42:09 And he bowed his head and gave up the ghost.

42:14 You see, when they begin to compare notes, what happens?

42:19 And I believe what our Lord was saying was this.

42:23 As I gave up my son to death, I want to give as it were a sacrament, a sentimental display that in his death he destroyed the power of death. And so he gives a little mini-resurrection and has living monuments walking around the streets of Jerusalem who are saying that the great provision in the death of Christ is the destruction of death itself. Isn't that what the Scripture tells us in Hebrews chapter 2? That he through death destroyed him that had the power of death.

43:02 That he might deliver them who through what? Fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage. And oh, what bondage there is when I begin to face the God of the Bible and face myself in the light of the Bible and know that the wages of sin is death and the haunting realization that I cannot escape it. But wonder of wonders, I may say with Paul, who is this?

43:30 Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died. And the great provision of his death is the destruction of death itself through the death of the Son of God. And it's by means of an understanding of that fact that leads the child of God to say, who is he that condemneth?

Can You Say, 'Who is He That Condemneth?'

43:59 As we bring our study to a close, tonight, may I press upon your conscience every fellow, every girl, every man, every woman gathered in this place on this Easter Sunday. Can you say Paul's words? Who is he that condemneth?

44:19 Not like the drunken man who's out of touch with reality. I'm not asking you, can you say, yeah, I don't fear condemnation. I just got some hopes and ideas that maybe God will be merciful and God won't be too picky about my...

44:32 No, no, my friend. I'm not asking you that. I'm asking you if facing what the Bible says about God in all His burning holiness, in all of His inflexible justice, facing what the Bible says about yourself in all of your corruption and sin and exposure to the wrath of God, can you say tonight as your last words before you pillow your head upon your own bed in sleep, this night, who is he that condemneth? Can you hurl out a challenge to angels, to devils, to men,

45:10 and even in the face of God Himself and know that there's no condemnation for you?

45:17 Can you? If so, it's because in some measures you have been brought to understand and to believingly embrace what Paul meant when he said, it is Christ that died. For in that death you have come to see the position, in which He died. Your surety, your substitute, pledged to meet all the demands of God's law against you.

45:48 You've seen the disposition of the Father against Him in death, one of positive and active wrath and judgment heaving out upon Him, as it were, all the billows of His wrath, sparing Him not. And then you've seen the great provision of that death, the destruction, the resurrection of death itself. God willing we'll pick up the next train of thought in our next study. It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen from the dead, in which we will attempt to see that that resurrection was the vindication of Christ's personal claims.

The Impact of Assurance on Christian Living

46:30 It was the affirmation of Christ's adequate sacrifice. And it was, the procurement of final resurrection for all the people of God. Oh, may God help us to penetrate more into the heart of these gospel realities that we with Paul may have that kind of confidence. Ah, but someone says, what's the use of all this?

46:57 What will that kind of confidence do for you? Well, you just read on the next few verses and you see. It doesn't create license in the spirit of indifference. There is nothing that drives you, drives the wheels of true Christian zeal and devotion like the confidence that there's no condemnation.

47:16 I'm talking to some of you who drag your feet in Christian service. Why? Because you carry the awful load upon your back of a nagging conscience that wonders, are all my sins yet going to rise up and demand that God judge me and damn me? Oh, my friend, when that burden is off your back, what spring it puts into the step that you're going to die.

47:39 And what joy it brings to the service of the living God. Oh, if I'm speaking to some saint who with trembling hand has laid one hand upon Christ and the other hand just sort of shifting between Christ and your own obedience and Christ in your own performance and Christ in your own holiness. Get that other paralytic hand off those things. Lay it upon Christ and Christ alone.

48:08 If you don't believe in Christ, you're going to die. If you don't, you'll never come to settled, well-grounded assurance. You'll always be doubting and stumbling and staggering. It is that kind of assurance that will enable you to face every enemy as did the Apostle Paul and triumphantly assert we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.

The Call to Unbelievers: Flee to Christ

48:38 And then my closing word is to those of you who can't make any such statement. Am I talking to some tonight, fellows, girls, men, women, who as you face the God of the Bible and face your own sin, you have to be honest and say, I've had it. If God gives me what I deserve, Mr. Martin, everything you've said tonight, you've carefully guarded that these are provisions Christ made for his own.

49:06 That the Father and the Son entered into a contract concerning those whom the Father foreknew, set his love upon. How can I ever believe that? How can I ever be found in that circle? Ah, wonder of wonders, the only way anyone ever knows he's in that circle, by fleeing to Christ just as you are.

49:27 There are many of us here that can say humbly and yet with full of praise, we believe we are the elect of God. That God loved us in eternity. We're saved tonight not by accident or because we cast the deciding vote, but because we believe God is for us. He was not for us.

49:47 We decided for him. He's for us from eternity when He chose us. And He's for us to eternity when He will glorify us. You say, well how did you get to that place?

50:00 Well, I'll tell you, we didn't sneak up into the role of God's elect and thumb through the pages until we found our alphabet and looked in and found our name. There's only one way we came to that conference. We came to the Lord Jesus just as we were in all our guilt, in all our helplessness, in all our bondage. in our sin. And we said, Lord Jesus, we believe you are what you say you are in your word.

50:29 You say in your word you are a willing and an able Savior. You say you receive all who come unto you. You yourself said with that word of authority, not a plaintive plea, but a gracious authority, come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. And we came, and we found that he does give rest. And as we were enabled to embrace him and to confess him as our only hope, then we came to understand that we were loved of him long before we ever discovered his love to us. And my dear unconverted, unsaved friend, that offer of mercy is extended to you tonight. You need not feel shut out. From the glorious privilege of saying, who is he that condemneth? You may say tonight,

51:24 oh, that I could go home tonight and pillow my head and say, who will condemn me? I know that there's no condemnation. I'd give anything to be able to say that, my friend. You can say it if you cast yourself upon the Lord Jesus. Ah, but you say that's too simple.

51:47 That's God's only way. Don't stumble over its simplicity. He says, lay both hands upon the head of that surety and substitute, the only Savior of sinners. Don't you reserve a pinky for anything else. Ah, but I've got to wait for something else. Don't you wait for anything more to move you. God's word indicts you as a sinner. God's wrath hangs above your head in your state of impenitence, and Almighty God graciously commands you to repent and to believe the gospel now, here, in this place, in this hour.

52:23 He commands you to repent, to believe, to cast yourself upon Him. Oh, may you do so. And what you do not understand and can't reason through now, cast yourself upon Him in faith, and you'll know by wonderful experience, as many of us have come to know, that He is all and more than He ever pledged He would be to helpless, hopeless sinners who cast themselves upon Him. Oh, that you may cast yourself upon Him.

52:56 Cast yourself upon Him tonight, and rejoice that this Easter day, the resurrection power of Christ has become your portion. Let us pray.