Principles of Position, Lesson 4

So we're on lesson four. Last week we covered the first two questions. So you can check those off. We defined the term justification. Did anybody learn anything with that? Or maybe get just a little bit clearer picture of what was going on? The Lord said, I declare you justified. That was a pretty big revelation, I guess, to me when I was able to put those pieces together as this being something that officially happened in the courtroom of heaven and was recorded eternally. And that picture, I mean, justification is a legal term. And so it's sometimes useful to see that in a legal setting. And so we've got another term that we're going to look at today, but last week we talked about justification. We define that as being declared righteous.

That's how the Lord sees you. He sees you covered in all that the Lord has done for you and says is true of you. That is all He sees of you. How do you think that impacts a person's walk? Especially one, and I know that we don't have anybody in here with a riddled past. There's not a single person in here.

But how do you think that that impacts your understanding of your relationship with the Lord if you believe that all he sees is what the Lord Jesus did on your behalf? Does that give you some... peace of mind about maybe who you are and what you've been in the past in terms of sin shackling you and being such that you've got this past and this history and oh yeah, that guy before he knew the Lord. Or even that guy after he knew the Lord. It's sort of an infinite truth. It is an infinite truth. It's eternal. Like mind-boggling. And it can bring you peace if you let it. You know, if you don't let it, you can turn that stuff over and over.

I feel so... I just feel like the Lord would... I'm not worthy. You know, I'm not worthy of that kind of thing. Have you heard that before? Have you felt that way before? Yeah. Your feelings, all of a sudden, start to try to battle the truth of justification. And if you haven't had that happen, you're probably a brand new believer. And that's okay. Because you likely will, and I think a large degree of Christian believers, Christendom, evangelical churches, have a lot, a lot of believers still tied down to who they feel they are.

And how they feel the Lord must see them. I don't pray as much because I don't really want to bother Him with my stuff. I don't think I can get up there and teach or help do this or do that or wherever the Lord is leading me. I think the Lord would want to have somebody a little bit more mature than me. This is where the feelings of who we believe we are all of a sudden start to control our decisions and affect how we walk in a daily way. So we're going to talk a little bit about that with question three.

But I just wanted to remind you that justification has the capability, and it doesn't mean that you're going to take advantage of it, but the truth of justification has the capability of setting you at complete and total peace with who you are before the Lord.

If you have a problem, and notice I said you, if you have a problem with how you think the Lord sees you, that's your problem. Because he stated it very clearly and the gavel has been has been placed on the judgment table and he has said, this is what I see you. If you want to argue about it, that's your problem because I'm settled in my heart about you. I know what I believe about you because I went to the cross for you. You're justified. Yeah.

So, you know, those feelings, it seems like they come up a lot more when we're in the midst of some circumstance, like a storm, right? And that's when it's an opportunity to see if you really trust God is going to get you through it. So it's God that brings on those storms, right? I mean, it's not like It's not like Satan or anything. It's like God is in control of the storms. Absolutely.

We talked about that when we studied through the book of James, the trials and the temptations. While He may not be directly causing those trials and temptations, it could be sin, it could be evil in general, the world, the flesh could be bringing about those. We learn that the Lord uses those. So He uses them to what? to child train, right? And I can guarantee you that 99% of those trials are directly related to this issue of justification.

It starts there, because you don't enter into a place of thinking, I want to believe the Lord on this matter, and I'm going to take Him at His authority, and I'm going to reject my own authority on this matter, if you don't believe you're justified before Him.

If justification isn't settled in your heart, you're not even having that conversation with him. Because you're not worthy. And so all that's left is you, and your gumption, and your bootstraps, and you're pulling them up, and you're mucking your way through it. Right? The sad thing is you are worthy, but you're just killing yourself for no good reason. It's no good reason, absolutely.

So then we said, you know, what does it mean to be born to the wrong family? We said that there's a lot that you get when you enter this world under the headship of Adam. You inherit all that Adam did and chose as the head of mankind. You inherit that.

And what's interesting to recognize is that we talked about last week the word wrong. Why is that wrong? So because that's not what God intended. He did not intend for you to inherit the sin nature. He did not intend for man to have to deal with the things that Adam passed on to us, but they are yours until the Lord has communicated the gospel message to you in such a way that you believe it. And then all of a sudden he says, I'm going to satisfy all that you are in Adam by placing you in a new family and you now belong to the Lord Jesus and all of your history is now related to who Christ is and not who Adam was.

So he didn't intend it, but he knew it would happen. Yeah, I tend to use the word intentions. The Lord is sovereign. There's nothing that happens outside of his understanding and his control, but he's not this kind of controlling God that many might believe that we serve in such a such that he is manipulating you against your will to cause all of these things to happen, these horrible events in the world. Yeah, that's not his desire.

Maybe is another good word for it. But it is still within his perfect plan. They will all work out to the good. And that is the omniscient, omnipresent, loving, immutable, eternal God and a character of the Creator that we understand to a degree but do not understand eternally or fully. But that's what's going on in the background.

So that's my introduction, 15 minutes in. Just a little bit of a reminder, we had a lot of new faces from last week and I'm glad you're here so I wanted to cover a few of those things real quick. So number three, get your answers ready. Why is it so important that the truths of our new birth and justification become crystal clear to us? First of all, notice the word truths. In this case, Mike brought out two different truths. We've got the new birth and the justification. But why are those truths so important that they become crystal clear to us? I wrote a real long story about it.

Let's see, I said, because we will live forever in fear that God will reject us and send us to hell if we don't know that our old man or flesh has died. And that we became new creatures in Christ and that we were not, and we were declared not guilty. God says that we have been declared righteous and we have been given the spotless robes of righteousness. God says because of our faith in Jesus we receive the free gift of salvation by grace alone by the cross look of Christ.

Awesome. So question number four. Did you guys pick up on that? It absolutely did. That was well written. Well written. I think that You nailed it on the head. So based on those truths and obviously a clear understanding, and you might have some similar answers on your paper, what does that mean now?

What does that mean? Once you walk out this door, what does that mean? If all that is true, what does it mean when you leave? And you get in your car, you turn on your radio, you turn down the corner and you drive home or you drive to meet a friend or whatever you're doing, what does it mean?

It means it's still true. Are you sure? I'm sure. Even when you leave this room, where everything's kind of safe and everybody agrees with you? Well, I know, but I spend a lot of time alone. And it's still true even when you're alone? Right. Most of the time. Most of the time. You know I am. You're not perfect. I'm not yet. Well, actually you are. He's perfect. That's right. So that's what I'm getting at.

It's one thing to understand the theological, and I don't mind the term that, theological. We need to understand doctrine and theology because those are big terms for the truths. So we need to wrap our minds around the truths of what we believe. But I find that the biggest challenge is doctrine in the real world.

It's easy to talk about here. I mean, goodness, you know. And you get a little bit of a pep talk when you come into church. And you've got everybody, you know, kind of, they're agreeing with you. They're thinking along the same lines for the most part. But it's once you hit that fresh air outside, in this case today. It's once you hit work. Once you hit work. Once you get that call from a family member or whatever.

What does the doctrine mean now? What does the truth believe now or me now? I think this goes back to a lot of what our last class was and I'm finding more and more Everything's based on our faith. Do you believe it? I mean I can think about it and I can have the knowledge, but do you believe it? I think that's what it comes down to In the real world. Do you believe it? Do you believe what he said? It's our faith and I know the facts are there, but do you believe it? So let me ask you a question. I think that's a good point. Last class was about faith. We studied that from all the different angles. We looked at it for a long time in a lot of different ways and learned quite a bit there. So my question is, well, to Courtney's question, do you believe it?

What if you don't? Okay, it's still true. So maybe I get out there in the real world, so to speak, and I don't believe it. I want to believe it. And so you might have a conversation like this with the Lord. Lord, I know you said this, and I want to believe it. Help me believe it. Or I'm not there yet, but maybe in a little while I'll get a little bit closer to that. Or I'm growing. Like, Lord, just have you know, thank you for your graces, I kind of grow through this, I don't believe it yet.

Have you ever felt that way? In your mind, or had that kind of conversation where, I know that this is what he said, I'm not believing it fully, but I want to. What do you think the solution to that problem is? Well, what about that scripture, I don't know who said this, I believe, but help my unbelief. That was in the gospel somewhere.

Yeah, I didn't know. So I don't think you can be absolutely, no matter what happens to your kids, Donald Trump is in the news. I mean, I don't think that there are times that you can be... I can't be totally strong. I think, what is happening? Sure. So let's keep this train of thought. You know that you need to believe. Faith is the matter here. That's what you've got to get to a place of making the trigger decision point is I got to believe this. I don't believe it yet. So what do you do?

Do you say, maybe one day? I think once you give up me and depend on something far better than myself, you're going to be okay. Otherwise, as long as you're all wrapped up in yourself, you'll never get there. So you're telling me that if you're worrying about how much faith you have, or how to figure out the faith problem in your own life, you're focusing on yourself, whereas the solution is really in the Lord Jesus?

Right. Pretty good answer. You guys agree with that? Yeah. I think it's really important, right at this point, to be very clear on what the truth is, whatever, like justification. I think it's important that we really understand all the nuances of it, and so that it's solid.

Because a lot of times, teachers will throw out a word, or a book will throw out a word, and they really don't define it, and they don't make it clear, and then we're exhorted to believe just because it was there. I think it's got to be clear first and that's the job of the teacher I think is to make it as clear as possible. And let's say that I walk out of here and it isn't clear.

What do I do? I think it's incumbent upon me to dig and to look and to find and to get it clear so that I know precisely what I believe. So this is, and you guys hit on all three parts of the question I think that I had in my mind or the answer that I was going to try to propose.

First thing is, where's your focus? Where is the truth found? Is it found in your belief in the sense that I just got to get more of it? Because if you're sitting here worrying about what's going on in the world, or how much faith you have, your focus is still in the wrong place.

So I appreciate what you said there. I think the focus is on the Lord Jesus and what He has done. Where do you find what the Lord said about the matter? Where is that found? In the scripture. So, the second part is, if I'm not believing something, it can be because it's either not clear, or I haven't spent enough time understanding it to the degree that it's personalized with my relationship with the Lord Jesus. It's a point that I was able to pass a test with. I got the definition correct, but it didn't impact me in a way that Yeah, that justification thing, I understand what it is, but I'm not sure it happened to me. So, the focus is on the Lord Jesus and his word.

You clearly define what it is that you're not believing, and you stay there. You stay there. You literally behold the Lord. on that matter and continue to work through that truth until you do understand it. And make sure that if you need to ask somebody about it, that you do. A teacher, as Mike mentioned.

But if you're struggling with a specific area such as your new birth or justification, You're not going to experience the benefits of it until you understand it fully. And when I say fully, you may grow in that understanding. You will grow in that understanding as you get more mature in the Word. But the point is, I don't want to sit here and worry about my feelings of my faith and do I have enough. The moment I realize, I'm not believing. I'm not trusting.

You go back to the Word, and you sit on those passages, and you talk to the Lord about those truths, you get clarification, you study. Because what goes on up here is a result of your time in the Word, and what happens out there is a result of you spending time and beholding Him on that matter. I think there's another element in there too, and that is The Spirit of God's job is to reveal Christ to us. And I think there needs to be an expectancy and trust that He's going to teach us through people, through the world, whatever, that He is the one who reveals Christ to us. And it isn't, yeah, I study and I dig, but He's the one that's got to do it. And I understand that. And I trust Him. If I don't trust anything else, I trust Him to make this sense? I think it's a really good point.

One of the benefits that you have as a new believer, or not a new believer, but as a benefit of being born into the family of Christ now, you have the Holy Spirit, which you did not have in Adam. And that's a radically different mindset and ability to maneuver this world than if you did not have the person of the Holy Spirit revealing and guiding and teaching. It's his job to get what's on that paper into your mind in such a way that you can experience it.

Notice I said the word experience. So there's a lot of Christianity that's hung up on the experience. In fact, we skip a lot of this defined justification and I mean, we'll read the verse, but then it goes right back to, let's talk about experiential Christianity, and how does it feel, and what is it like?

Have you experienced the power of God this week? If not, you're probably in the wrong church, because we experienced God. Has anybody ever read the book, Experiencing God? Yeah, I read that. It was all about how to experience God in your life, and how Moses experienced God, and Abraham, and so forth. So, there's a really large amount of Christianity that focuses on the experience. Is experience important to the believer?

Sure. In its place, right? So, question three, why is it so important that the truths of our new birth and justification become so crystal clear to us? Why? So that we can experience that relationship, that fellowship with God in the everyday world, right? In the moment by moment. In our condition. That's right. So, when you understand the positional truth of your new birth and justification... I mean, we can expand it. So, we've used this before.

Death, burial, resurrection, ascension, seeding. These are what we call the identification truths, right? We've covered those in multiple ways here. When you understand who, this is what we kind of use this as an example to say, this is who we are in Christ. It explains the new birth, the justification, all of that. These are the ways that we refer to the identification of who we are. These are positional truths.

You died, you were buried, you rose again, you were sent in, you were seated. You can't be seated if you're not justified. You can't be born again if you don't die. And, if you aren't risen with the Lord, you're not alive. So, new birth, justification, all of this is tied into our identification truths. These are positional, with conditional experiences. That you can experience the death, your co-crucifixion with Christ on the cross, you can experience that conditionally.

What does that look like? What might it look like? Rest. What? Rest. You want to rest? Rest. You want to take a break? No, that's what it looks like. It looks like rest. It's a good answer. I'm going to throw in another thing. So then, okay, so we get that, and we get the rest, and we get the peace, but it isn't for us. It's all when we get that, that glorifies God, right? I mean, we get that, and we're the peace, and we know it, and we're grateful for it, and that's like our worship. That's like our giving glory to God, right? I mean, it goes back to glory for God. Oh, so we can be, like, all resty. You know, I kind of struggled with a similar concept when I was told that I received crowns.

I'm like, well, isn't it enough that the Lord is glorified? Why would I need a crown? And so I was like, I don't want to think about that. I'm not going to think about going through my life getting the crown of this or that or getting, you know, rest or peace or joy. I mean, isn't it enough to say that everything is really wrapped up in the glory of God?

But then I came to recognize that why did he say it? Why did he tell me that I would experience this if it wasn't something that he wanted me to have? So I think sometimes we can get into this, like, you know, don't worry about me type of thing to the degree that, yeah, it glorifies the Lord, but you know what glorifies the Lord as well?

That you have peace. And that's yours. It's yours to have. And it's something that he said is true. I don't quite know how to say this, but as you're talking there, I'm thinking, it seems like a lot of times it's my rest. I want you to come down here to the earth and rest me. Whereas in reality, it's his rest, right? He lifts us up to rest in what he's done. Right? Does that make sense? Yes.

It's just like we're on vacation or something. in another place, but it's always good to be home because that's where we can really rest. Well, our home is not here, it's in heaven. That's where our rest is. Rest is a person. Isn't it? And I think that all of these experiences that the Lord talks about having as we trust Him are wrapped up in the person of Christ. Who's doing the resting? This is what we say to kids all the time. Okay buddy, who's doing the living right now? Because this looks a lot like Aiden's flesh. It's funny when they ask you the same thing. Hey dad, mom, who's doing the living right now?

I don't know if it will make sense, but earlier when Mike had mentioned about what we really need to understand, Like, I've read that Romans 6 chapter many times, but I had like a lightbulb going, I think, where in Galatians 2.20, it says, I've been crucified with Christ, I no longer live. And then when I read Romans 6 from this study, then it says, knowing that our old self was crucified with him, I get, even though I've read an eye for an eye, I still have my eyes. As far as understanding, it's like I'm thinking, my old man was crucified.

Galatians 2.20 says I was crucified. And I'm trying to figure out, that's confusing. I mean, maybe it shouldn't be. But I think that's a truth that has to be nailed down Literally. Between our old man and me and the new creature, because I'm a new creature now. My old man died. No, you died. See, that's what I'm saying, but it's confusing. I died, but I'm in Christ now. I don't know. So we have an old man. And then we have a new man. Who is the head of the old man?

And what is that nature? I know you guys can't see this, but it's sin. Sin nature. And the new man, who is the head of that? And what is that nature? Divine. You say new nature. Resurrected life of Christ. Yeah. So I'm not going to write all that. I mean, I've seen divine nature in the Bible, right? Sure. Yeah. So the question is, and what's interesting is we've already got it written up here. We've got Adam and Christ. Right. So we've got this guy. And this guy.

When you believe in the gospel message, you are co-crucified with Christ. And that is a positional truth where the Lord places you, who you are in the old man, on the cross with Christ. At the time he died, that was a future thing, right? That's one of the questions here. So there is a crucifixion that takes place.

You've got what Verne refers to as a continuity of person. So, each of us look different, we have different personalities, we have different gifts, and those are the unique fingerprints of the way the Lord created you individually and uniquely from anyone else. We'll just call it continuity of person. And the reason Verne refers to it as continuity of person is because it continues.

It's not something that gets crucified. What gets crucified on the cross is your old man, who you are in Adam. Everything that we talked about last week in the judgment room, that's where the old man is put to death. All of who you are in Adam is crucified. Your continuity of person remains the same through the old and the new. It's who you are. It's how God designed you to think and be the personality that you are.

I don't think the old man is equipped with death. If death means separation, then this continuity of person is separated from the old man and recreated in Christ risen. But the old man still is alive and well and functioning within my old body. See, I think that's the sin nature. Yeah, the sin nature. It's not dead.

And to say that the old man is dead gets to be an issue that, I don't want to say this, it means that if he ceases to exist, he doesn't. No, he's put in a place of death. The spirit of God holds him on the cross so that he can't... A physician can't be an influence on this person. And my identity now is in the resurrected Christ. But I died. I don't think the old man died. I'm the one that did the dying. So let's look at a few verses. Just give me a second here. I didn't have my computer up and running.

So let's look at Romans 6.6.

So what I'm proposing is that the old man is a positional person with the headship being found in Adam, and that the sin nature is not equal to the old man. Okay, they're not the same. And the reason I think that that's true, if you look at Romans 6, 6, it makes a distinction between the two, and it talks about a different outcome to those two different entities. While they definitely have their source in the same event, being that what happened in the garden, they're seen differently in this verse, I think. So, Romans 6, 6, somebody want to read that for us? For we know that our old self was crucified with him, so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin. It's a pretty important verse. So you've got, first of all, knowing that you're old self, okay?

And that's, in my understanding, that's this guy. And what happens to it? Dead. Crucified. Yeah, it's crucified. in order that our body of sin, which is what this guy is, might be done away with so that we would no longer be slaves to it. So, done away with. All this stuff is separated. This is put to death on the cross.

This sin nature still influences you. And it's like, as Miles refers to it, it's like the captain of the ship who is replaced by another captain. He's shackled down below. And now you have a whole new regime of ownership over this ship. The rule has changed. The leader has now been replaced. He's shackled down below, separated from you, but he keeps yelling out commands. Give me 20. Well, I don't have to give you 20 anymore. You're not my master any longer. You're deposed. You're a deposed monarch is the term he uses.

How about the old man is body and mind and soul, but there is no spirit. The spirit is not active. But yet, so if the soul, like the old man without having the spirit as dead, but the new man is that soul and that mind and that body, but has the spirit of God. You know what I mean? So it would be the difference between That's dead. That's like the union with God. That old man is dead. But the new man with that union.

You know what I mean? No. Yes, Mike. I don't think the word self is appropriate there. Because the word is anthropos, which means man. Yeah, it could be old man. But it's not the self. The self and the old man are not the same thing. Right, I mean, that's just what we read out of that translation. It's the New International Version that calls it self, and I think that's a mistake.

Yeah, I agree. But the point is just that there's a distinction between the old man and the body of sin. And so, in my understanding, again... I have a question there. How can you say that one's dead and the other one isn't? Well, I think Romans 6 does. So, let's read it a different way. Let's read it as if they were the same thing. Right?

So, since you already know this, that the old man of us was crucified with him, that the body of the old man might be taken offline, that we no longer serve the old man. See how there's no difference there? There's got to be a distinction between the old man and the body of sin. But if we make them the same, then one's crucified, and then the other one is taken offline, and then we're told that we can't serve the old man. So we start getting really confused. Or another example might be, since you already know this, that the sin nature, so now we're equating the old man to the sin nature, so since you already know this, that the sin nature of us was crucified with him, that the body of sin nature might be taken offline, that we should no longer serve the sin nature. So if you read it that way, you end up with some problems as well. Well, what is the best Bible? So, we're dealing with an English...

In this case, the only frustrating part of this translation is the fact that it should say old man. Just mark out self and put man. I've already done that somewhere along the line. So what my understanding is, is that there is a difference, but what happens is, this is a positional truth, Russ, is what you asked about. Your old man, I believe that the old man, he is not influencing you conditionally. That's a positional thing. That's who you are, who you were in Adam, and all of his history. It's dead, It is separated from you. You will never ever have any... You can't go from here to here ever again. It is done.

What I do believe happens is that the sin nature, because we are in flesh still, that the sin nature is present with the new man, but it is not in control. So it influences the new nature, but it is not I shouldn't say influence, it attempts to rule and run, just as it did under the old man, but it has no authority to do so. But we have a choice. You have a choice, and the reason you have a choice is because now you have a new nature in the Holy Spirit.

And all of you, who you are in Christ, is the new man. So that's my understanding. So here you are, you're separated from God, Over here, you are now separated from law. Yeah, but you're in union with God. Yeah, now you're in union. That's a good way of putting it. Absolutely.

You're separated from the sin of the world, flesh, the devil, all of that enemy that used to reign and rule in the old man, you are now separated from and free to serve who you are in Christ. That's my understanding of it. That's what's confusing a little bit because Mike is saying that I died but I'm also a new creature and I'm alive in Christ. What does death mean? Separation. Do you want to stay in this? No. Do you want to be separated? from this?

Sure. Okay. Did you believe in the gospel message, which is death, burial, and resurrection of the Lord Jesus? Yes. So forth. So when you did that, you were separated from all that you were in Adam and placed into all who you are in Christ. That's a positional truth. Yeah. Yeah. And you're doing a great job. No, it's okay. I mean, is anyone else confused by this? Raise your hand. Yeah, you're just scared. I believe that a lot of the confusion is because of clarification of terms, and that's just my own personal opinion.

I prefer to recognize that when I am being influenced in my condition, and that is my day-to-day walk, When I happen to recognize sin, a sinful notion in my heart, the Holy Spirit reveals that and I acknowledge that as the sin nature that will not be present when I do not have this body any longer. That is the only thing that is left of who I am. I recognize that not as the old, I mean, whatever. This is positional and this is conditional to me. And so I recognize I've been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who lives, but Christ lives in me. So this is me now. The sin nature is still present as long as I have this body of flesh.

But it is not rule. And it is not the authority of my life. And I have that choice to make. It sure can be. And you can live out who you're not. And that's a big problem. Would you say your body is part of the old man? No. What is it? It's the flesh. It's part of God's creation. The old man is a positional thing. It's not my flesh.

That's how I would define it. And it was like the old man could not be influenced in his... at every moment be available to be influenced by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit would be like coming down on people, right? It's like, oh, I'm going to use them.

So what's the very last decision that all of who you are before believing, what was the last decision that the old man, being the positional person, in combination with that sin nature, what was the last decision they made? Well, you kind of just said it, like, believing. That's right. We would say the very last decision, and how does that happen?

The Holy Spirit works on this old man, convicting and conveying truth to the point of accepting or denying it. You deny it, you stay in your position of who you are in Adam and you continue to operate with the sin nature. You believe it was the last decision you ever made as the old man. Being positioned in the old man and operating 100% without choice to the sin nature.

But this is a positional person in my understanding. And this is a positional person. And there's histories related to those. And when you were justified, and that's what we're talking about here, when you were clothed in the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ, you became all that Christ is in God's eyes. You are now positionally seated with Christ in the heavenlies. Conditionally, you have a new nature, the person of the Holy Spirit, teaching and guiding, and you have the freedom, complete and total freedom, to walk as beholding the Lord through His Word and allowing Him to do the living through you. You now have that freedom.

But you have nothing to do with the old man any longer. That is a positional person in history that is not yours any longer. Jim, it was the old man that caused separation between us and Christ. So if we still had the old man, there would still be that separation.

Yeah, I mean, I think that's accurate. I'm sorry, what did she say? I didn't hear. If we could bounce back and forth between these two, that's what caused the need for this in the first place. And so it wouldn't be a permanent separation, it would be a temporary separation. This is offensive.

I mean, when we put on the cloak last week of sin, and all that it brings, we talked about the consequences of sin, or what? Death. And it has a three-part meaning. You die physically, you die spiritually, and you die eternally. That's what this guy, that's his whole mode of operation. That's who he is and what he does. He's separated. He separates.

So, it leads to death and in order to satisfy, the Lord says, there's something that I need in order to do away with this. What is it that the Lord requires? Yeah, and what's the evidence of the death? The blood of Christ? Let's look at question four. What makes the value of the life sacrifice the measure of its worth? I'm going to give you three verses, and we'll read these. This will be what we finish up today on.

Leviticus 17.11 Hebrews 10.4 and John 1.29.

Who's got Leviticus 17.11? Get back into that Old Testament.

Hebrews 10.4. What's the third one?

John 1.29. So I need somebody to read those three, preferably one different for each. This is Leviticus. For the life of a creature is in the blood, and I have given it to you to make atonement for yourselves on the altar. It is the blood that makes atonement the one's life. Okay. So, what's the value of the life sacrificed here? How is it measured? The worth of the blood. The worth of the blood. And what was the blood that was being sacrificed in Leviticus?

Yeah. What kind of animals though? Perfect animals, right? Unblemished, male, etc, etc. We can go back through the whole atonement story, the Passover, and you get a very, very clear picture of how when they had that door post in the Passover, he said, I want you to put the blood here, here, and here. And if I see that, if I see the value of a perfect animal sacrificed for those that were inside, right, you had those inside, I will not look at the sin of the one inside, I will see the sacrifice made, and I'll pass over that. Right? So, at that particular point in time, the value of that blood allowed God to pass over but it still had to be paid for. So let's read the next verse. Hebrews 10, 4. For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sins. So how come he passed over? He said he would. So when he did this, when he passed over, did he take away sins? No. Alright, so what did he do? Ignore them. He spared them. Spared them? Because they followed his instructions. That's right. So he postponed judgment to a particular point in time. So now John 129. The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, Look, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

So what is that? What is the value of that sacrifice? It takes it away. So is that future to us or past to us? Both. The sins from the beginning to the end. For you? Well, I hope it's for everybody. So when he died on the cross, were your sins future?

Yeah. What about Moses? Passed. See, that's the thing about this is that the cross, while definitely a point of time in history, has eternal ramifications and by definition doesn't have a forward or a backward because it's eternal. Right? Well, now wait a minute. At the cross... Well, I always... I don't know where I got this. It must be here.

But I thought that that was for the beginning of time to the last man that lived on earth, the sins were forgiven, if they believed. That's true. I'm just saying that the implications of what we just read in John 1.29 that the Lamb of God who died on the cross and took away the sins of the world, it wasn't just from that point in time when John set it forward. What didn't have to do with that point in time just backwards, it had to do with eternity. So there was a provision made in the Old Testament that postponed judgment until this moment in time. That's awesome because I thought it was just my past sins.

Right. Which is really, I think, one of these questions. Yeah, number 8. And we'll just get this real quick. So, number 8 says, how is God able to forgive our future sins? He already has. Were they all future? Yeah. Unless you're like almost 2,000 years old. Or more than 2,000 years old now. So mark off 8. We just answered that one.

Do I have time to get into Ephesians? Sure. Let's look at Ephesians 1-7. What are the two important factors of Ephesians 1-7? Redemption and forgiveness. Okay, we have redemption, forgiveness, yeah, there could be three potentially if you went down that path. What's the second part of that verse say? So I'll read it to you. In him we have redemption through his blood, remember, the value of the blood is very important.

It's not my blood. It's not your blood. It's not the blood of a goat, bull, or lamb. It's His blood. Remember, it has to be His blood. So, in Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to what? The riches. Riches of His grace. So, in Him we have redemption. What does that term redemption mean? Purchased. Purchased. I've got a few minutes. I'm going to read you a little bit of an excerpt from a description that I give to people for the word redeemed or redemption. So, I'm just going to read here.

For centuries man had been a slave to Satan's will through blatant lies, imitation of the truth, even the denial of his own existence. Satan had manipulated mankind for his own purposes, but even independently of Satan's influence, man could not live a perfect life. Man was a slave to sin. But then Jesus came and redeemed us.

It is difficult for us to grasp the rich significance connected with this word if we do not understand its association with ancient slavery. A wealthy man would go to the slave market to buy a slave. There he would see the captives chained, humbled, and broken, each being sold for a given sum. The man would pay the asking price and the slave would become his.

So far, this was nothing unusual, but now the story takes an interesting twist. On rare occasions, the new owner would then take his new slave out of the slave market, break off the chains, and set him free. When this happened, it was said that the slave had been redeemed.

So that is what Jesus did for us. We were bound by the chains of sin and Satan and in the slave market of life. We were helpless to deliver ourselves, but then Jesus came and purchased us. paying the price with his own blood, and he took us out of the market, broke off the chains, and set us free." You can mark down 1 Peter 1, 18-19 if you want to look at it further.

It's even cooler than that because it's like when the slave was set free, the owner in the process of freeing the slave died himself. And gave him a whole new life. Right. Yeah, so the analogy is weak in some regards, for sure. But when you think of redemption now, it is a purchase made with blood, and there is a freedom that comes as a result of that. So if we don't understand redemption, we're missing out on a big part of the riches of His grace. That is cause to understand grace. That's a cause to celebrate the grace that we now live under.

Okay? I have to stop there. Alright, let's pray. Father, we thank you so much for the truths of who we are in Christ. And I just pray that you would continue to teach us as we look to just clarify some of these more challenging concepts. I do just ask that you continue to guide us to the truth that we might correctly divide the Word in such a way that you might be glorified with that. Lord, we again thank you for all of what we enjoy now that we have been placed into Christ for the justification and now understanding the redemption, the fact that you paid the price on our behalf. We just thank you for this time spent together and pray that we might experience conditionally what we know to be positionally true. Amen.