Showing posts with label Atonement. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Atonement. Show all posts

Famous Last Words - It Is Finished! (Good Friday Message notes)

Posted by Randy | Labels: , , , , , , , , , | Posted On Friday, April 6, 2012 at 7:00 PM

I wasn't able to have notes printed for our Good Friday service, so I've placed them here on my blog, along with the pictures used during the message. I intentionally used a great deal of Scripture because I find them so revealing and, ultimately, inspiring. I hope this helps and blesses you!




April 6, 2012  •  Good Friday
Famous Last Words - Part 7
"It Is Finished!"



Matthew 27:45 (NLT2): “From the sixth hour until the ninth hour darkness came over all the land.”

Romans 3:23 (NLT2): “For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard.”

Romans 6:23 (NLT2): “For the wages of sin is death….”

atonement – at-one-ment


Model of the Temple

Diagram of the immediate Temple area, including the location of the Holy of Holies

Drawing of the Ark of the Covenant (no actual drawings exist)


Model of the Cherubim over the Mercy Seat (no actual models exist)


The High Priest behind the Curtain


Hebrew placing blood of the lamb on the door jam before the Angel of Death's pass-over


John 1:29 (NLT2): “…John (the Baptist) saw Jesus coming toward him and said, ‘Look! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!’”

Jesus: “‘For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve others and to give his life as a ransom for many.’” (Mark 10:45 NLT2)

2 Corinthians 5:21 (NIV): “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

Isaiah 53:4-6 (NLT2): “4Yet it was our weaknesses he carried; it was our sorrows that weighed him down.… 5But he was pierced for our rebellion, crushed for our sins. He was beaten so we could be whole. He was whipped so we could be healed. 6All of us, like sheep, have strayed away. We have left God’s paths to follow our own. Yet the LORD laid on him the sins of us all.”

1 Peter 2:24 (NLT2): “He personally carried our sins in his body on the cross so that we can be dead to sin and live for what is right. By his wounds you are healed.”


Darkness over the land from the sixth hour until the ninth

Matthew 27:46 (NLT2): “About the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice, ‘Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?’ — which means, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’”


John 19:28-30 (NLT2): “28Later, knowing that all was now completed, and so that the Scripture would be fulfilled, Jesus said, ‘I am thirsty.’ 29A jar of wine vinegar was there, so they soaked a sponge in it, put the sponge on a stalk of the hyssop plant, and lifted it to Jesus’ lips. 30When he had received the drink, Jesus said, ‘It is finished.’ With that, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.”

1 John 2:2 (NLT2): “(Jesus Christ) himself is the sacrifice that atones for our sins—and not only our sins but the sins of all the world.”

It is finished – tetelestai (Greek)

Colossians 2:13-14 (NLT2): “13You were dead because of your sins and because your sinful nature was not yet cut away. Then God made you alive with Christ, for he forgave all our sins. 14He canceled the record of the charges against us and took it away by nailing it to the cross.”
  
Romans 5:8 (NLT2): “But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners.”

John 3:16-17 (NLT2): “‘16For God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. 17God sent his Son into the world not to judge the world, but to save the world through him.’”

Romans 3:22 (NLT2): “We are made right with God by placing our faith in Jesus Christ. And this is true for everyone who believes, no matter who we are.”

Ephesians 2:8-9 (NLT2): “8God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God. 9Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it.”

receiving communion vs. taking communion

Philippians 3:9 (CEV): “…I could not make myself acceptable to God by obeying the Law of Moses. God accepted me simply because of my faith in Christ.”

Matthew 27:50-51 (NLT2): “50And when Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, he gave up his spirit. 51At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom.…”


The Curtain separating the Holy Place from the Holy of Holies, torn from top to bottom at Jesus' death
Hebrews 10:11-12 (NLT2): “11Under the old covenant, the priest stands and ministers before the altar day after day, offering the same sacrifices again and again, which can never take away sins. 12But our High Priest offered himself to God as a single sacrifice for sins, good for all time. Then he sat down in the place of honor at God’s right hand.”

Hebrews 9:12 (NLT2): “With his own blood—not the blood of goats and calves—he entered the Most Holy Place once for all time and secured our redemption forever.”

Hebrews 10:19-22 (NLT2): “19And so, dear brothers and sisters, we can boldly enter heaven’s Most Holy Place because of the blood of Jesus. 20By his death, Jesus opened a new and life-giving way through the curtain into the Most Holy Place. 21And since we have a great High Priest who rules over God’s house, 22let us go right into the presence of God with sincere hearts fully trusting him. For our guilty consciences have been sprinkled with Christ’s blood to make us clean, and our bodies have been washed with pure water.”

Hebrews 10:23-25 (NLT2): “23Let us hold tightly without wavering to the hope we affirm, for God can be trusted to keep his promise. 24Let us think of ways to motivate one another to acts of love and good works. 25And let us not neglect our meeting together, as some people do, but encourage one another, especially now that the day of his return is drawing near.”



John Stott on the Cross

Posted by Randy | Labels: , , , , , , , | Posted On Saturday, April 2, 2011 at 11:31 PM

My sermon series right now is entitled, "The Cross," and I'm based it, in part of the book The Cross of Christ by John Stott. 


John R.W. Stott has been one of the great minds of evangelical Christianity over the past half-century. He was a principal writer of the Lausanne Covenant in 1974. In 2005 Time magazine recognized him as one of the "100 Most Influential People in the World." I like him not just for all these reasons but also because I can understand what he's writing. Sometimes, our deepest theologians write in such exact and "thick" language that I find myself reading and re-reading the same page over and over again. I don't find that true with Stott. His writing is profound but also accessible. And for that I am grateful. Below is a picture of the cover of his book from Amazon.com at The Cross of Christ. Order it if you'd like to dig deeper in this incredibly important topic.



My message for Sunday, April 3, is entitled, "Why God Used the Cross," and it looks at what God did in Christ on the cross. You can go to our website and download a podcast of the message (or even subscribe to our podcasts through iTunes), if you'd like to go deeper. The theological expression is "substitutionary atonement": God took our place on the cross in Jesus Christ.

2 Corinthians 5:21 (NIV): “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

Romans 8:3-4 (NLT2): “The law of Moses was unable to save us because of the weakness of our sinful nature. So God did what the law could not do. He sent his own Son in a body like the bodies we sinners have. And in that body God declared an end to sin’s control over us by giving his Son as a sacrifice for our sins. He did this so that the just requirement of the law would be fully satisfied for us, who no longer follow our sinful nature but instead follow the Spirit.”

Romans 5:8 (NLT2): “But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners.”


I used several quotes from Stott's book in my message on the 3rd, but not all of them made it into the printed notes. Below are a few that I felt were particularly helpful or profound:


John Stott: “The crucial question we should ask, therefore, … is not why God finds it difficult to forgive, but how he finds it possible to do so at all.” (p. 90)

John Stott: “At the cross in holy love God through Christ paid the full penalty of our disobedience himself. He bore the judgment we deserve in order to bring us the forgiveness we do not deserve. On the cross divine mercy and justice were equally expressed and eternally reconciled. God’s holy love was ‘satisfied.’” (p. 91) 

John Stott: “All inadequate doctrines of the atonement are due to inadequate doctrines of God and humanity. If we bring God down to our level and raise ourselves to his, then of course we see no need for a radical salvation, let alone for a radical atonement to secure it.” (p. 111) 

Emil Brunner: “…the cross of Christ ‘is the event in which God makes known his holiness and his love simultaneously, in one event in an absolute manner.’ ’The cross is the only place where the loving, forgiving, merciful God is revealed in such a way that we perceive that his holiness and his love are equally infinite.’ In fact, ‘the objective aspect of the atonement…may be summed up this: it consists in the combination of inflexible righteousness, with its penalties, and transcendent love.’” (p. 131) 

John Stott: “The essence of sin is man substituting himself for God, while the essence of salvation is God substituting himself for man. Man asserts himself against God and puts himself where only God deserves to be; God sacrifices himself for man and puts himself where only man deserves to be. Man claims prerogatives that belong to God alone; God accepts penalties that belong to man alone.” (p. 159) 

Sometimes this kind of topic can seem somewhat technical, and you may experience that. But for me, when I think about what God did for us in Jesus Christ, the pain and suffering He  suffered for us, the depths of love He demonstrated, I'm just blown away. This is the truth I need to remember and have to remember when I get down on myself or feel attacked or don't feel like I'm worth very much - Jesus Christ died for me! I hope it sinks in for you, too!
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