Atonement

Pastor Martin opens the period of manifestation in the Gospels, demonstrating that Jesus Christ is truly man as witnessed in his conception, birth, infancy, and growth to manhood. He expounds Luke's record of the virginal conception, the normal pregnancy and birth, and the boyhood years in which Jesus genuinely grew in wisdom, stature, and favor with God and men. The sermon insists that the Gospels portray a real human development without halo or shortcut, then applies this with wonder at Christ's love and consolation that our salvation rests on a true and sinless humanity.

Pastor Martin moves from the Gospels into the period of explanation and application, demonstrating that the apostolic epistles continue to assert Christ's true humanity as essential to the gospel. He surveys Romans 1, Romans 9, 1 Corinthians 15, Galatians 4, 1 Timothy 2, and Hebrews 2 to show that Paul and the writer to the Hebrews never blush to call Jesus a man. He then applies the doctrine, showing that Christ's humanity authenticates him as the promised Messiah and equips him as an efficient mediator who could establish legal union with sinners, obey the law in their stead, and suffer the curse for their sins.

Pastor Martin presses deeper into the sacrifice of Christ by considering it under the category of propitiation. He establishes the necessity of the category from Hebrews 2:17, 1 John 2:2, 1 John 4:10, and Romans 3:25, then defines propitiation from Old Testament origin and classical Greek usage, illustrated from Jacob's appeasing Esau in Genesis 32 and Proverbs 16:14. He explains that propitiation presupposes the wrath of God — His aversion to sin, displeasure at the sinner, and will to avenge — and shows how Christ averted that wrath in His blood.