Lesson 15c
Romans 4:21-25 · JD McCulley · Aug 5, 2018
Romans (2018-21), No. 29
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/49261911241777

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

We are in chapter 15, question number 5. I'm going to tackle 5. Are you ready? So we're on question 5 and 6. These are two sides of the same coin. So on question five it says, list the similarities between Abraham's faith and our faith, and six is list the differences. I've written on the board here, it's a little small, but it'll help to serve its purpose with listing these out and getting a sense of what's the same or what's similar and what is different. So let's go all the way back to Abraham, Old Testament context here. And let's talk about what are the similarities, what are the same things or the similar aspects of how he came to know the Lord and how we came to know the Lord.

He was a cargologist in Colbert State. Okay. Does anybody have a... I think of the same thing. See? Okay, so do we agree about that? I mean, did Abraham have to do anything in order to be saved? Okay. Have you ever heard differently? By faith. In that case, it's not just similar, it's the same, right? So, all right. What else is similar? Theology can be studied from the side. Okay. Do you agree? Whip? What else?

What did Abraham believe God was going to do? He was promising. Okay. He was going to do something on Abraham's behalf. What was it? Give him a son. Okay. Give him a son. What does God promise to do on our behalf? Make us sons. What's that? Make us sons. Make us sons.

That's interesting. I haven't heard it put that way. So we could say that God acts on our behalf. Differently, but He does act, doesn't He? He does something on our behalf, right? So we'll say, He acts on our behalf. And that's where the similar, instead of using the term same, I think, is key. God is still doing something on, the Creator is doing something on behalf of the creature. They're different, but he's still acting. He's the one doing the acting. What else?

Let's look at Romans 4.25. What does it say? Is that right? He who was delivered over because of our transgressions and was raised because of our justification Did Abraham believe that God could raise a human from the dead?

In this case, his son. Yes, he did. He did? Otherwise, he wouldn't have. I did. He wouldn't have followed through with it. The first time I ever learned that, I thought that was really interesting. Here Abraham's thinking to himself, you got me here. I mean, I'm an old, old guy. I've got a son. I gotta walk up this mountain with a pile of wood, and we gotta figure out what's gonna happen on the other side of this thing.

And yet, he walked by faith through that entire event, knowing that if he had to take his son, or when he did, that God would raise him back. Because otherwise what? If he didn't raise his son, all of his promises would be void. And we often look at that as one of the, I mean, historically that's one of the greatest acts of faith. But if you just look at the essence of what it is, it's God's a God of promises. And it's His character that I'm trusting in here to do something that I have no idea how it works or what it looks like, but He's got to do it.

Right? So we share that. How is that similar but different? Let's start with that point. We're moving into question number six here. We've talked about this, Courtney talked a little bit about this several lessons back, but who's being raised from the dead? So there's Isaac in this case, right? Over here, it's who? Jesus.

So we still have the same trust in terms of what happened. However, his was prophetic in terms of looking forward, right? It hadn't happened yet. Ours is what? Looking back. That's right. So we might say, Prophetic versus historic. Which one's easier? Historic. You think? They're both pretty tough. What do you think? What do you guys think? Which one's easier? Easier? Prophetic I think would be easier. Think it'd be easier? I think so.

Because when your faith is tested, your focus is on what God says he will do. A lot of times my faith is tested and I have to look at what God has already done and testing comes against what the word tells me he's already done. And that makes it difficult because then it gets right down to clear choice, quick.

So just for Aidan's sake, for Abraham he was looking forward to what God was going to do, right? For us we're looking back to what Christ did on the cross. And both prophetic and historic, whether you're looking forward to God's promise, his prophecy of what he said he will do and how he will behave in his character, or you're looking back at what he did, We both, in both cases, Abraham versus us, we both apprehend that by faith, right? We trust that by faith.

The question is, is it easier to think about what God said he's going to do in the future that hasn't happened yet, or is it easier to look back and say, I trust what he already has done? Is the question really worth asking? Probably not. It's not worth asking, but one of the things, thinking about it is, you know, to have prophetically what's going to happen. So we have both of them.

And to some degree, I think historic is a little bit easier. I mean, go to Israel now and see all these places that, you know, not that you need that, but that, you know, you see where he walked. Here's where, you know, here's all the things that are in the Bible that are real. And, you know, that has, again, and looking forward and saying, you know, I'm going to have a new body and a new, you know, and my sin nature will be completely separated. And, you know, those to me are harder than I think we're saying harder to swallow. It takes me time to comprehend what I haven't seen yet, or what I haven't beheld in the word as truth and believe as historically fact. I share that. I've got a friend, man, he's just been a solid, solid witness to our family. We've served alongside him with good seed.

He's constantly talking about the millennial kingdom and the future. He's not married. He's a missionary. He has very few things. He's always looking forward. And I think there's a crown for those guys, right? Who are constantly looking forward to the return of the Lord. That's what he is. He finds it completely a motivating factor in his Christian life to look forward to what will come. And he beholds it with such confidence.

And I think to myself, do I have as much confidence as my buddy John? Sometimes I don't. From a sanctification standpoint, on future things, I waver in faith on some of those things. It's like, what does that look like? You try to put it in American terms, because that's my context. It's like, well, the royal kingdom will kind of look like America. It'll just be better. I think it goes back to what you said, and I agree.

It really shouldn't be a metric. Number one, it's not a metric. But number two, it's the same faith. It's either looking forward or looking backwards. It's the same faith. And I want to repeat that real quick. It's not a metric. We're not talking about a harder kind of faith or an easier kind of faith. We're simply saying that as we grow and are weaker or stronger, Sometimes that faith looking forward for me, and again not like my friend John, it varies in terms of how easily it is to comprehend or maybe where I am with relationship to how strong or weak my faith is.

I don't think Abraham was ready to take his son to the altar on day one. You know what I mean? That's not where he was on day one. Now, the faith that he had in God's promises was just the same faith that he had when he took Isaac up to the top of that mountain, you know, and had to think about the reality of God raising his son from the dead in order to fulfill it. He grew in that faith. But he also knew God would provide. He did. So he could look backward and see his faith. That's a good point. Sorry, Russ had a question.

When I get to my tent, last week I went to King Sudra's and there was a sweet Jewish boy stacking my groceries with his little hat on. When I see a Jewish person, I think, you know, the whole first five books of the Bible and all the amazing miracles God did, He still has Jewish people walking the earth. And I don't know why that is a huge factor in my faith. There are Jewish people on this earth, and there's an Israel that Courtney and Beth are... It's historical, right? And while God has not, there is no variation between Jew and Gentile, I mean, God still has a plan for them, right? He absolutely does. Matt, you had a thought?

Well, I was just going to say, we've been talking a lot about Isaac, but I think Contextually, the scripture here is actually talking about God promising him a seed, a son. The promise in this context is not about Isaac. It's about sacrificing him and providing a substitution, which ultimately happens. It's that his flesh was unable to produce a seed, and that was the promise here.

That's a good point. Does that make sense? And it's not promises here, it's the promise, which was that. It still works, but that was the faith that he had. And I always say it, because he, you call promise made, promise kept, is another way to think about it.

As Abraham had to look forward to the promise, he also, as we discussed the other week, so with the tougher thing between we can look back at promises kept, and there's contextual challenges with it, but when we think about it from Abraham's point of view, the challenges of a promise made where Abraham took matters into his own hands with a seat outside of Sarah. My point is, those are the challenges between prophetic and historic. When you're looking forward to something, perhaps like Abraham, we tend to Rest in the flesh, don't we? Or take matters in our own hand and not let God provide and work His promises as He intended. Those are some of the challenges you have in what's different.

I mean, I don't have that challenge. I've never taken it into my own hands. Me either. I'm just saying it for the benefit of everybody. It's a theory. Have we taken it into our own hands? And that's something similar too. You know, that's looking at it from a do not do, but I think that's something...

I've always appreciated that there is that contrast in scripture about these men of faith that we look back on. They just had such a struggle with it. They were not... While they're heroes and their faith is worth being placed in Hebrews on the hall of fame of faith. Boy, they sure took matters into their own hands a lot. And I appreciate that kind of reality that I see in scripture. It speaks to the way that things really are.

It's not a, become one and transcend all that is. I'm like, I've never seen that before. Did the guy sit at the bottom of the tree and ultimately just like... How long did he have to sit there and meditate to become... Just like when Isaac had to learn that when he gave out his blessing he crossed his hands and blessed the opposite of what the flesh would think. Just a bunch of honor dudes.

No, it does. I think it's a source of comfort to know that God is working with a sinful creature that he pursues with love and never stops. That's comfort to me. It was that way in the past and it's that way in the present and it will be that way as we move forward. You have a thought? I also wanted to interject, although the Book of Romans has to do with events that happen on the earth. And me as a believer, my focus becomes increasingly heaven. And Abraham's focus was not heaven.

And there's... I could look forward to, like your friend in the Millennial Kingdom in Reckonington, and that's fine. And the reason I bring this up is because on Wednesday nights we're studying 2 Peter, and there's a great verse in 119 about how Peter encourages people to study prophecy. the same thing as Jesus rising in your heart. And it's different.

And there's a difference there in a sense that lots of people interpret that verse to say, well, what he's talking about is waiting for Christ to come again. That's not what he's talking about. He's talking about right now. And he's talking about believers being heavenly focused because that's where our blessings are. They're not necessarily earthly.

I think that's what makes a Christian's faith more difficult. I think it's because lots of the facts about his position are evident facts and it's very difficult to get your arms around it because you don't have any empirical evidence that there's any... how can I prove this? As you were talking, I kind of came up with this thinking, you know, this is an eye.

So as we think about where we're looking today, we're looking back at what is true, right? So we look back to the cross. We look back to all the other promises that God has made in the past. We look forward to the things that are happening now. Like, we're thinking about walking by faith today. So I'll just put like a T for today. Today by faith. We'll forget what this means later, but T by F. Today by faith. And we're looking at tomorrow, right? The future. By faith. Right? Those are the things that are to come. That he's promised.

Millennial Kingdom, etc. And we're looking up. Or, maybe we're looking up and down. So we look up to where we are placed in Christ. And we look down from the perspective of where we are placed. So that's a lot of looking. What's that? I said it was interesting. It's very interesting. The pieces all fit. They all fit in there.

So those are some differences between from Abraham, but there's a lot of similarities too. There really are. One of the things that's different, and that has to do with where we are in history, right? So the historical context of Abraham was just totally different than ours. In verse 19, it says, without becoming weak in faith, he contemplated his own body, now as good as dead, since he was about 100 years old, and the deadness of Sarah's womb. So his context was, I'm old, there's no way this is going to work, in terms of what is historically true of me today. So there was a historical difference. For us it's, hey, a long time ago, 2000 years ago, and you may be Bill, not breathing very well and having to contemplate what happened 2000 some odd years ago and applies to you today in your physical circumstances. So historically there's some difference here.

What about in Genesis 15, 5-6, I'll read this to you. This is talking about Abraham, and he took him outside and said, Now look toward the heavens and count the stars. If you are able to count them, and he said to him, So shall your sins be. Then he believed in the Lord, and he reckoned it to him as righteousness. So, how was Abraham's faith demonstrated differently than ours? What was God asking of Abraham to believe? I mean, how was that different?

He is saying, physically I'm going to take you outside and have you look at the stars in the sky and Contemplate what it is that I'm telling you by way of the promise of the descendants and He's sitting there looking at the stars in the sky and he's audibly hearing God's promise and he chooses to do what? Did God take you out show you the stars?

Did he speak to you Ooh, that's scary. Anyone want to answer that? Okay, not audibly, but what? So, yes, he does. The Holy Spirit impresses. And that's a form of communication that is just as valid as an audible voice, isn't it? But it was demonstrated differently. So there's just a different demonstration of how It happened how we came to know the Lord, whether it was in a bunker under fire or at the front of a pew in a Baptist church.

These are pewds. This is the altar. That's your bunker. I was down before the altar. I had to do that a lot. I always wondered what... I started reading the Old Testament and I'm like, altar? This is not the same thing. I know this is the altar. Anyway. Abraham was looking at something that was going to be earthly.

What? which is very different from what we should be looking at. As Mike said, we should have a heavenly perspective. I was thinking the same thing, which is the promises are different really, right? We promised him a son, he's promised us much more wonderful spiritual things.

Yeah. What else? Let me ask you this. I think that's probably a good list there, but what is it that What is it that joins the two? Are we talking about two different systems here? So how do we account for the differences that Abraham believed and what we were to believe, or are to believe? Okay, that definitely joins the two. If you think about how God chose to reveal himself, this will kind of help us connect the similar and the different.

God didn't give us everything we needed to know about himself on day one. Okay, Adam, boom! Here's your Old and New Testament. It was through history, and we often use the his story, it's through history or God revealing himself over time is how he chose to do that as a creator, didn't he? He didn't drop it all on Abraham on day one. We use the term progressive revelation. That simply means that God revealed himself little by little as man was ready to comprehend who he is and what he has done and what he will do. So it's actually this whole idea of progressive revelation. I'll just put the PR up there for our purposes.

That's what joins the two. That's why we're not And we're not going back to the way that Abraham did things. We're not building an altar and sacrificing a substitute lamb on it, right? He demonstrated his belief in that way. That substitute on that altar that day was looking forward to what we're now looking back on. And progressive revelation, meaning God progressively revealing himself as he chooses to in his sovereignty, is what connects those things. And now we know, scripturally in the New Testament, that that's all done.

Right? We're not going back to that. Just one thought here. If you don't understand this, you're going to be stuck in a Saturday Advocates church down the street. keeping law and doing something different than what God has asked of us to behold Him through the word and be transformed to His image, ultimately to His glory. That's where we're focused.

So what's the next step in progressive revelation? Would that be the rapture? It's already done. We've got all the revelation. Yeah, I think we've got all the revelation up until the Great White Throne Judgment, right? We have in Ephesians, I believe, that we will continually be learning of His grace on into eternity. So, is He done revealing who He is? No. We will spend an eternity knowing of who He is and learning more of His grace. Grace upon grace. That revelation, I think the remainder of that revelation is for believers.

Unbelievers have everything they'll ever need to know at this point in time right now. The last thing they're going to hear is that verdict at the Great White Throne, right? J.D., wouldn't you say, when I look at the similar and different. You asked what is the commonality that stitches, what's the sinew between these?

It seems it's the object of what the faith is placing. The object is Christ, is God. Abraham believed in the promises of God. We today, as Christians, believe in God's promises, both finished and to be finished. And that's the commonality we have, is what we're placing our ultimate object, the object that we're looking at, is God and His promises. He's the doing, not us. He's the promise keeper. We just believe. We do.

And He reveals those things progressively, but I think that the fact that this is the how, this is the who. Right. And that's an important point. We're talking about what is similar and what is different. He does it progressively, because that's how he's chosen to reveal it to us. But it's he that does it. And that's the key. I think you're right.

The object of our faith is the same, even though he's revealing himself differently at different times, in different ways. Everything pointed forward and everything is completed now. All of those sins were being set aside until Christ died on the cross for those Old Testament saints, weren't they? And it was looking forward. So they had to make that substitute every single, you know, back and back every year. Gotta go back, gotta go back. Any other thoughts before we move on to question 7? I want to make a comment about it. I agree about the time.

I think it's important for believers to understand that even though they have positioning of all the blessings, the keys and sets, in order to be expanded by God to contain them takes a lifetime and it depends on it. And especially since they're heavenly and the focus being In our case, the glorified Lord Jesus Christ in the heavenlies. That's really what becomes about him. The information about him is really, really important. But there's no substitute to knowing him. And the fact that God would allow us in this time frame to actually behold the glory of Christ is just amazing to me.

Because it gets to be less about what he's done and just more about him. And that takes a lot of time for the believer to be, I don't know what the right word is, maybe expanded so that he can do that. Because you can't do that early on in a Christian life.

You're wrapped up in the facts and you're fighting for the common sin and that kind of thing. It's like when John talks about the fathers, the whole thing about the fathers is that they know Christ. Cool as sand. Yeah, I like what you're saying and I agree. It's this area that is often missed by the believer. They got saved, so you know, check. Now, do they understand everything that was going on on day one? No. But they knew the most important critical elements.

And we go back. Every time we read in the Old Testament, we read the New Testament, we're learning about what has happened. But as we move past the cross and the empty tomb, we start moving into conditional. What equipment do we have available in order to tackle this thing? What are our resources here?

The Holy Spirit. The Word. That's right. Our faith, ultimately, is the trigger. So we're learning this whole conditional stuff constantly, right? So the real me is where? In my position in Christ. I'm coming to know that by faith and setting my affections on the face of God. These are the promises. The believers' promises?

Well, one thing I didn't draw is ultimately this and this become the same. I don't know what else to draw there. So this is being transformed and conformed and ultimately when you lose this old bag of bones, there's no separation anymore, right? And that's what's kind of neat is that, yeah, we're looking back to His promises and we're believing in those. We're looking at the things that are trials today, the things that we're experiencing right now, and we're choosing to walk by faith based on who we are in Christ or not. Right?

And that's our condition. That's still the real you. I don't distinguish between... because your spirit is what God eternally designed and is unique to you. So your eternal person is you. But your history has changed the moment you believe, right? You went from having Adam's history to having Christ's history, which means that you now have a heavenly history that you're going to fully understand when you lose the flesh, right? However, there is so much about your heavenly history and who you are today in terms of where you are placed and how God views you, that you can understand and comprehend by faith. And that's the context of Galatians, Ephesians, etc. Right?

And then we've got those future by faith. Those things that are yet to happen that we look forward to. But I was already placed in Christ in heaven. when I became a believer. You absolutely were. So was that the real me? Yeah. And that's now. That's me in my condition. That is true. So by faith you're comprehending this stuff. It's by faith, right? Yeah.

It always comes back to almost all of this is Colossians 3. Therefore, if you, or since you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your mind on things above, not on things that are on the earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in glory.

The star. The star. But, you know, our position is in hidden with hidden in Christ, in God. That's our position right now and that's how God sees us right now. Yeah, it's a done deal with me. Well, that's how God sees you right now. He sees you in Christ. He only proves it to me. But that's all he can see you now. In my condition, he only proves it to me because it's nothing I do. It's what I believe. You're both, yeah, we're both saying the same thing. Diagrams are going to fail, right? They're not going to be perfect. I think you did better with the diagram.

So I think what you brought to light is that while we have our eternal I mean, this is who God made each of us to be, right? We each have our own unique person that he, in his mind, created eternally. But if you try to go from your condition to your position, you'll struggle all the time. You have to go from your position to your position. From your position, keep looking down. Yeah, we have the up and down, right? But our condition, so what we're saying here is that I'm walking through the day, and I face trial. Trial comes up, slaps me in the face, right here, boom.

I can't breathe, I gotta go to the doctor. We went to the Iron Man yesterday, I watched a friend do it, and they're hauling some guy out, doing CPR, he drowned. I don't know if it worked out for this guy. They're sitting there doing CPR for 10 minutes, and it's just the most violent thing I've ever seen in terms of trying to revive this guy. They put him on the stretcher, they hop on top of him, and they're doing CPR all the way up until they get him in the ambulance.

Life hits you right out of nowhere. It's sobering sometimes the way your condition gets smacked with a trial. Right out of nowhere. And maybe he's recovering, and maybe that's the case. But whatever the case is, as a believer, we get hit with those things, and the very first thought is what? Hopefully. Okay, best case scenario, what is our first thought, as a believer? Praise God. No. It's usually, oh no. Wow, okay. This is not good. So, the moment you now know that something is not good, what's your next thought? Huh? Praise.

Well, this is what we're talking about. I mean, you're telling me where I'm supposed to be thinking, where I'm supposed to be looking, but I'm just putting it in the context of reality. I end up in the word, deeper in the word, more steady in the word. It drives me to the word. What's that?

I think if you're talking initially, when you first are confronted with a trial, You have two forces in you, the old man and the new man. And the old man says, oh my goodness, this is not good. And then you forget that you have the spirit of God in you who says, wait a minute, this comes from my father, your father. And you need to trust him in this. But you're nervous and you're worried because you want to know the outcome right away. Well, you don't get to know the outcome right away. You're the guy on the gurney.

There's an understanding, I think, for a believer that whatever it is, it came from my father's hand. Even though I may be panicked about it, I know it came from his, but I may not know that right away, I may just panic. I may have an anxiety attack. Who knows? And that's because I, you know, but the Spirit of God is within every one of us. who will begin to show us what this really is, or who's the source of this, and we can trust him. And that might take some time.

Yeah, I think you're right. And couldn't you say that your response is going to be how well you know God, your relationship with the Lord, you know that you talk about your strong faith, as you have experiences over time, more quickly you go to the Lord being in charge of it, rather than the panic, because like Mike said, there's always those two in you. So the only thing I would say maybe is two forces. There is There's the new nature and then there's that deposed monarch as we talked about last week.

So, not equal here. We're not talking about a battle that is an equal battle in our mind for our faith, right? We're talking about somebody that's yelling from the gallows under a murmur that we really are familiar with what he's asking us to do. Which is not trust the Lord in this circumstance, right?

You got this, pull up your bootstraps, we'll take care of it. Or, forget it, I'm done, I don't care anymore. Whatever the response is. I think that's street level how it works, right? Ultimately, it may take some time for us to get our mind focused on heavenly things again. But what are those things?

I'm hit by a trial. I'm thinking, okay. I'll settle down. I know this is from God. And now what? Like, okay. There is rest available for me. I don't feel it yet. But we're not talking about feelings. We're talking about there's rest here. How is that rest available to me?

And where do we start to go? To the Word of God. About the things that are true of you here in Christ. And who He is. and the gratefulness that we have for who he is and what he's done on our behalf. And we start to just dwell on those things above. And what does that give you here? Peace. Peace and rest. That surpasses anything that the world can offer or understand, right? We can't forget the time though, because one of the great things about Abraham is that these 40 years from the promise to the sun on the mountain.

Yeah, you don't get to just put, you know, pull the trigger and all that is taking place. This is a process that the Lord uses. I think that every single trial from the day that you're saved as you go through your life is brought to you by the Lord to increase your faith so that you'll trust him more and more in spite of all the circumstances around you. Does that make sense? I think that's true. I'm almost thinking of, I don't mean it to be trite, but the ABCs here in this trial.

A is you abide in Christ and you behold him. You behold his promises in the person of Christ. And then the C is kind of what Mike is talking about. We become conformed to his image. We're transformed. It's kind of the ABCs of the process. That's pretty cool. Abide, behold, and be conformed to Christ. Did you just make that up? Yeah. That's why we go through trials, right? And it's that pressure that's conforming us into his image. There's an engineer. Right? That's the time. Yes. Cool. I'm going to get buzzed. It's your trial. Huh? It's my trial.

So let's look at, we covered question 7. We talked about the deposed monarch. He is, the sin nature is held captive. It is not the reigning force. Right? I've got 5 minutes. So, we looked at question 7. We jumped ahead last week because the topic came up. Let's look at question 8. Does our faith believe on the facts or on the person who discloses his facts? Did we answer that? But tell me. Where is it at? Right here, right? Should be. Our faith must be in the person who has revealed the facts we are to believe. The veracity of the one proclaiming the facts gives the believing one confidence in what has been revealed. Faith brings us nearer to God.

That's key. It's a relationship here. We're not talking about how to just survive life. We're talking about the relationship that we have with our Creator, our Heavenly Father. That's much different than just believing something in order to receive something. Well that's the process of how faith works. It is. And that's the goal of faith. It's to bring you nearer to Him. To draw you closer with who you are in Christ.

Abraham knew that because at the time that God called him to sacrifice Isaac. we can do it, and I know it was promised, so I'll trust him. He didn't have a Bible track in his pocket, and he agreed that it was the person that he trusted. It's upon God that we believe, the very God who was in the opening chapters of the epistle bringing all of us under his judgment without righteousness and helpless to attain it is here believed on as our Lord Jesus indeed said in John 12, 44. He that believeth on me believeth not on me, but on him that sent me. It's not merely on God who set forth Christ to be a propitiatory sacrifice for our sins, but it is on The God who has set a public seal to the truth of our Lord's last words, it is finished.

And then by raising him from the dead. So that's Newell, in response to that question. So, let's look at question 9. We might let you get 10 next week, just because I don't want to rush it. Why was Jesus delivered up? That's part of the end of that verse,

25. Because of the eternal covenant.

Okay. Hebrews 12, verse 13-20. So, there's two things here, and I may not be able to fully cover them. Right? That's one problem. And then there's... This is the content of this verse. So, it's not just enough to have our sins paid for. Right? We've got two sides of the same coin problem. On one side of the problem, we've got something that we don't want. And that's sin.

On the other side, we have something we need, and that is perfect righteousness, to be accepted into the presence of a creator that is only righteous. So, if he just dies for our sin, you still have a problem, because you need the righteousness of Christ in order to be in his presence. The death of Christ relates to those things, to our sins and to our justification. There's an issue of the cross as it is to produce intended results that God wanted and that is solving that two sides of the same coin problem, right?

It's the death, burial and resurrection. We need it all. We can't just have the death of Christ on the cross. the glorious results. I think that's what... When he's risen, what is God saying about that sacrifice? God is satisfied with it. I'm satisfied. Without that resurrection side of this, we're not going to get what we need. But until God was propitiated, there would be no justification for us. Justification is a legal thing. I'm taking the gavel and I'm saying, I declare you righteous. I didn't choose you, I chose God.

Cool. We'll let question 10 lie for next week. Good start to the week. You don't look justified to me right now. Oh, great. Let's pray. Father, how we just thank you so much for just the privilege it is to, as Matt mentioned today, just to abide and to behold you and to be conformed by you. And we know that we talked about the time element and how we will oftentimes Navigate up and down in terms of our faith and our trust and who you are and what you've done on our behalf But we thank you so much that it is your work in us and that you've prepared it beforehand and that we can walk in it by faith and so we just Appreciate so much the ways in which you have communicated to us You've not left left us in the dark, but you've given us all the light that we need to understand you and to behold you and so just pray that we will continue to do that and as we walk by faith moving forward. It's in your name. Amen.