Consider the Cross, Part 1B

It's important to understand the cross of Christ not from an historical position. But from an eternal pers, why? Because you have to ask and answer the question: for whom did Christ die? For whom did Christ die? What was the plan? You see, you must understand. The importance of not only the ex of the at, but the intent of the at. That is, you must understand the far-reaching implications of the death of Christ as well as the express intent of the death of Christ on Calvary. So important. Why? If you don't distinguish between the two, you'll have a warped theology.

And therefore, you must understand the extent and the intent of the atoning work of Christ. On Calvary. Did Christ die for all men, or did Christ just die for some men? Did Christ die? Did Christ bear in his body the penalty of all sins or just some sins? All that is very important. Why? The time that we have left. What I want to do is be able to address something with you that I have had the opportunity to address with our leadership over the last couple of months. Talk to you about how that came about and why it's so important.

It's important because if you remember, in December I preached a message on John 3:16. It was a Christmas message entitled God gives His greatest gift. John 3:16, the most sim verse in all the Bible. And I decided to preach on that. Listen very carefully to what I'm going to say. I decided to preach on John 3. 16 because, like all my Easter sermons, like all my Christmas sermons, I preach them or prepare them a year in advance. I didn't decide to preach on John 3:1 in November or December. I decided a year.

From last December to preach on that sermon. Why? Because when I prepare for Easter, when I prepare for Christmas, I got so much going on in my mind that I write other things down that I say, I want to do this next year. So I begin to write those things down and prepare those messages a year in advance for special holidays. And that's what I did. And so come Christmas time, I preached on John 3:16, for God to love the world, and talked about the universal love of God for mankind. Little did I know the problems that that would cause in our church.

Some people thought that I was preaching universal salvation, preaching universalism, that everybody's going to get saved. I never said that. But some people came to that conclusion. I do believe in the universal love of God. I don't back away from that. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. So I preached on that text. Because I wanted the people who came at Christmastime to understand the love of God for their lives, to help them understand the importance of why Jesus Christ Himself c as a baby.

Ultimately, to be born to die, right? For the sins of the world. So I began with our leadership that first Monday in February instead of speaking about the doctrine of salvation to our church on that Sunday.

And so I did that, and we have started doing that the first Monday of every month, going through the doctrine of salvation and the important elements of what takes place when God saves a man's life.

That's all crucial for our leadership to understand. In introducing that, I did a tape, and maybe some of you heard that tape. It was entitled The Limits. The li and the lies of limited atonement. Now I got a lot of flack about that title. But you know me. I don't do anything unless I got chapter and verse. Right? If you've been here long enough, you know that. I wasn't just throwing out a title just to throw out a title. If, and some people do say, who believe that the atoning work of Christ on the cross was limited to a select few.

That is, the elect, or those chosen in Christ before eternity. They say that because there are some things in the Bible that they have to read into. For instance, for God so loved the world of the elect. Not just the world of mankind, but just the world of the elect. Or whosoever of the elect shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved, not whosoever will, just whosoever of the elect. All right, or whosoever of the chosen. And so you'll find that there are a lot of people who like to Read into the text and add words to the text that just are not true.

And there's a whole system of theology that believes that, that Jesus only came to die for a select few. At Christ Community Church, we don't believe that. We believe He came to die for everybody. Now, I say that because when I addressed our leadership on the limits, the lies and liability of the at. I wanted them to understand this verse. Are you ready? Do not add to his words, lest he reprove you and you be proved a Liar. I didn't say it. God said it. If you have to add to the words of the Bible to come up with a theology, You've done something that God has said, don't do.

Don't do. And people have talk to me and said, you know, there are many godly men. Who believe in the limits of the work of Christ on the cross called limited atonement. But my job is not to defend other men. My job is to defend the Bible. My job is not to go around defending other commentators. What other men believe or don't believe? My job is to defend the truth of God's holy word. The Bible says that I am to guard the truth.

1 Timothy 6:2. 2 Timothy 1:1 says, I am to retain the standards and guard the treasure. That's been entrusted to me. My job is to guard the truth. My job is not to guard what other men say, whether they be godly or ungodly. That's not my job to make that assessment. And as your pastor, I would do you a disservice if all I did was quote other men. My job is to quote God and to say what God says.

That's the most important thing. That's what this church was built on. That's what the church is founded on. And that's where this church is going to go into the future as long as I'm alive and Jack's still alive and the other elders are still alive. That's where we're going. And so we understand that the atoning work of Christ is not limited to a select few. It's available to every man. The extent of the atonement is available to every man. And I want to be able to show you that this morning by looking at the Bible.

Now, I can give you a lot of articles to read, and I can tell you about what this guy said and what that guy said, and unfortunately, people get caught in that trap. They get caught in the trap of, well, this is a good guy, and that's a good guy. You know, we study Bibles today. And everybody's there today. You forget that the study notes in the study Bible are not inspired. It's the Word of God that's inspired, not the study notes in the Bible. And unfortunately, a lot of people get all these study Bibles.

I don know how many of them are out there, and they read the study Bible and say, oh, this is what the text says. It's right here in my study Bible. Oh, that doesn't mean it's true or right. So you need to study the Word of God, right? To understand exactly what it says is so important. And we need to be like Bere, be diligent to show ourselves approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, right dividing the word of truth. That's our mandate. That's where we're supposed to go. That's what we're supposed to do.

That's what he tried to encourage everybody to do. And so, unfortunately, there are people who get caught up into quoting certain people. And one of the people that is quoted most often is John Calvin. But the problem is, most people quote books written by John Calvin, not what John Calvin actually said. There's a big difference there. And I didn't know John Calvin, because he lived long before I did. But if I was to know him today, if he lived today, he would be appalled about what people are saying about What they think he believed.

You know, John Calvin taught about the love of God for the world. People say that Calvin taught that God didn't love the unbelieving world. That's not true. Listen to what he says. On his commentary on none other than John 3:16, he says, Two points are distinctly stated to us, namely, that faith in Christ brings life to all, and that Christ brought life because the Father loves the human race and wishes that they should not perish. Calvin states in his own words that God loves the human race and wishes that they not perish.

Remember, God takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked, right? None at all. He goes on to say this. In John 3:16, the evangelist John has employed the universal term whosoever both to invite all indiscriminately to partake of life and to cut off every excuse from unbelievers. Such is also the import of the term world, which he formally Used for though nothing will be found in the world that is worthy of the favor of God, yet he shows him to be reconciled to the whole world when he invites all with exception to the faith of Christ, which is nothing else than an entrance into life.

Let us remember. On the other hand, that while life is promised universally to all who believe in Christ, still faith is not common to all, but the elect alone are they whose eyes God opens that they may see. him by faith. He differentiates between the extent of the at and the intent of the at. He differentiates between the availability of the at and the applicability of the at. Very clearly, we need to do the same. We need to understand what God says in His Word because the cross of Jesus Christ Is so important.

When I stood on that little league baseball field yesterday in front of hundreds of people and they said to Pastor Sparks, would you pray for our opening ceremonies? I, oh, yeah, absolutely. I'll take advantage of that. So, when I pray, I'm going to preach the gospel when I pray. I'm going to pray that God sent His only Son into the world to save the world and pray for the salvation of every little league that's there, and they would realize that Jesus Christ is the only way to God the Father. There's one mediator between.

God a man, the man Christ Jesus. There's only one way to get to heaven, that's Jesus Christ Himself. I mean, if I got an opportunity to preach to, you know, 400 little eag, I'm going to do it. Whether by a prayer or whether by a sermon, and help them understand that Jesus Christ is the Savior of the world. I'm going give you three verses this morning. Three verses that I think are very important to understanding the extent of the atonement. Because there are three verses that those who do not believe that Christ died for all have a hard time dealing with.

Okay? The first verse I want to be able to share with you this morning is Titus chapter 2. Titus chapter 2. Says it this way, verse 11. For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men. Now, By reading that, we understand that. If you believe in the limits of the at, then you would say that. The grace of God has appeared bringing salvation to all men who are elect. But that's not what the text says. It says that. The grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men. It speaks of the availability of salvation for all men.

It doesn't speak of universal redemption, or excuse me, universal salvation. It's not speaking that everybody's going to get saved. That's not the point. The point is that the grace of God appeared, and when it appeared, it made salvation available for all men. Why? Because that's the gospel that we preach. That's what makes the gospel good news, right? Why is it good news? Because if you're steeped in your sin and you need a deliverer, guess who the deliverer is? The one who died on the cross for you.

Right? And so we preach that vehemently. That's why Hebrews 2:9 says that Christ. Tasted death for every man. Not every elect man or every chosen man, but every man. Listen very carefully. To understand Hebrews 2. 9, you must understand Hu Pant, which means On the behalf of, or in the stead of, listen to this, every indiv man. It's in the singular and not the plural. Why? Henry Alfred says it this way. He says, the singular brings out far more strongly than the plural word the applicability of Christ's death to each individual man.

Each individual man without exception. He tasted death for every man without exception. You can't get around the languages of the text. Can't do it. And a lot of people like to take spiritual gymnastics and jump all over the text, adding all kinds. You can't do it if you understand the text. A. T. Robertson, in his word stud, says this: the author puts Christ's death in behalf of, and so instead of every man, as the motive for his incarnation and death on the cross. He came to die for every man that ever lived or ever would live.

That's why you must understand the predestination of the cross. Because God determined in eternity past that when sin entered the world, He would provide Himself a lamb. For man. It's that 18th century Puritan, John Brown, who says this. There can be no doubt in the mind of a person who understands the doctrine of personal election that those who are actually saved are the objects of a special love on the part of God and that the Savior had a special design in reference to them. But there can be little doubt that the atonement of Christ has a general reference Reference to mankind at large, and that it was intended as a display of love on the part of God to our guilty race.

Not merely was the atonement offered by Christ Jesus sufficient for the salvation of the whole world, but it was intended and fitted to remove out of the way of the salvation. Of sinners, generally every bar which the perfections of the divine moral character and the principles of the divine moral government presented. In consequence of that atonement, every sinner may be, and if he believes in Jesus, certainly shall be, pardoned and saved. The revelation of mercy made in the Gospels refers to men as sinners, not As ele sinners.

That 's true. So clearly true. Let me give you another verse. First Timothy chapter two. First Timothy chapter 2, verse number 4, 5, and 6.

It says that God desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God and one mediator also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave him as a ransom for all. The testimony born at the proper time. Christ gave him a ransom for all. Not just all the elect men, although he gave himself a ransom for them too. He gave himself a ransom. For all. All. Because there is one mediator between God and man. And that's the man Christ. The only one way to heaven, that's through Jesus.

Now, the text says that he desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. That's God's desire. That's important to understand. Why? The word knowledge, epikon, is a word that speaks, it's used four times in the pastural epistles, all four times dealing with the knowledge that refers specifically to salvation, the knowledge of the truth. In salvation, okay? That's important to understand that. Because at the heart of God, God is by nature a savior. Read through the whole Old Testament and you realize that God by nature is the savior of mankind.

That's what causes him to do what he does. And Paul says that it's God's desire that man Be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. Now, the word for desire is the It's not Bul, which Bul is decree. It's not God's decree that all be saved, because we know that's not going to happen. But we do know it's God's desire, The, that all be saved. And people will say, well, if God desires something, it will happen. No, that's not true. God doesn't desire sin, and it happened, right? But as part of his decree, God desires, that's why we pray Matthew 6.

Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. That's important. Ph, thy desire be done on earth as it is in heaven. Why? Because it's not. We don't pray, Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy decree be done on earth as is in heaven. Why do we not pray that? Because God's decree is being accomplished. God's decree, God's purposes, God's plans run and no one can thwart them. They run because He designed them to run that way. But God's desire on earth is not always the way it is in heaven.

In heaven, everybody does what God says. Completely, willingly, lovingly, obediently, because that's the way they are. But on earth, it didn't happen that way, so what did we do? We pray for God's desire to be done on earth as it is in heaven. Heaven. That's so important. And so, God's desire is that all men be saved. Yet God's decree is very clear. We all won't be. But that's his heart's desire. That's what he wants. He gave him as a ransom for all. I like what John MacArthur says in this. He says, Although his ransom is sufficient for every person, it is valid only for those who believe in him.

It is in that sense that his redemption is for many rather than for For all, the Lord was not teaching limited atonement. The idea that He died only for the sins of a select few, Paul makes it clear that Christ died for the whole world. That's pretty clear. For the whole world. And God desires all men to be saved. He takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked. Why? Because God loves the world. He does. He loves it with a supreme passion. Richard Baxter said that God tell us as plain as he can. As plain as can be spoken, that Christ died for and tasted death for every man.

Others will deny these plain truths because they think that God cannot justly punish those for whom Christ hath paid the penalty. But doth the Scripture speak? these opinions of theirs as plainly as it saith that Christ died for all and every man? Doth it say as plainly anywhere that he died not for all? Doth it say anywhere that he died only for his sheep or his elect and exclude the non-elect? There is no such word in the Bible. That's true. He died for all men. One more verse. We'll close with this one.

2 Peter chapter 2, verse number 1. 2 Peter chapter 2, verse number 1. It says, But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will also be false teachers among you. Who will secretly introduce destructive heres, even denying the master who bought them. Now, you can read many commentaries on On this verse. But if you're going to do a language study of the verse, you can't get around what it says. The word for bot is ag. We get the word ransom, redemption. And it says very clearly that false teachers are the ones who deny the fact that Christ bought them.

False teachers are the most vile, despicable people on the face of the earth. They lead people astray. They lead them down the primrose path toward destruction. And yet, Peter makes it very clear. That they deny something. They deny one very important fact: that they too were purchased. By the blood that was shed on Calvary. That the price paid at Calvary was a price even for the false teacher. Who, by the way, are not elect, not chosen. Proving the fact that Jesus came to die for all men. When it says all men, it means all men.

When it says the world, it means the world. When it says whosoever, it means whosoever. That's what it means. And that's important for For us to understand. Many other things I'd like to share with you this morning, I won't, but I need you to understand something. Say, well, what's so big about this? What's the big deal about this? It's a big deal. Why? Because I have to be able to say for a fact. Because the gospel is fact. It's true. I have to be able to say with certainty, and with that certainty comes integrity that says, Christ died for you.

If I don't believe that Christ died for all men, I can't say that with true integrity. I can say that I can, but I can't. And I can't say it with certainty, and I can't say it factually because I don't know if he did. If he only died for a select few. But if I believe that Jesus died for all men, just as the Bible says, that he paid the ransom, even for the false prophet.

That I can say to anybody who comes across my door: Mormon, Jehovah's Witness, the guy across the street, the kids on Little League Baseball Field, Christ died for you. And I believe that.