Transcription
[Music] I want you all to go home happy from this conference, but I'm going to do something now that may completely destroy any possibility of that. I'm going to do what every student in history hates. I'm going to give you a pop quiz.
Remember when you'd come in the classroom, the teacher would just say as soon as you sat down, take out a piece of paper now and put your name up in the right hand side and get ready for this unannounced examination. Just I hated those things. Now, I'm going to do it to you. But here's the good news. You don't have to write down your answer and you don't have to put your name on the paper. I'm going to give you this quiz and you take it in the quiet of your own mind which at the end of the day will condemn you.
What I want you to do is as succinctly and as crisply as you can answer the question right now in your own mind. What is the gospel? How would you answer that question if somebody said to you, "What is the gospel?" What would you say?
Bible said 2 Corinthians 5:21, "He made him who knew no sin." Sin for us that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. Let me unpack those 15 Greek words. He God made Jesus sin. What do you mean he made Jesus sin only in one sentence? He treated him as if he had committed every sin ever committed by every person who would ever believe, though in fact he committed none of them.
On the cross, our sins were laid upon him. And then all the punishment of a holy and righteous God fell upon the head of God the Son. He suffered it to its fullness. And Christ died for sin once for all, the just for the unjust. And God imputes our sinfulness to him. And he nails our sinfulness to the tree. And Christ dies and raises again on the third day for our justification. And there's another imputation. The righteousness of Christ is actually imputed to us.
But at the heart of the gospel is a double imputation. My sin is imputed to Jesus. His righteousness is imputed to me. And in this two-fold transaction, we see that God who does not negotiate sin, who doesn't compromise his own integrity with our salvation, but rather punishes sin fully and really after it has been imputed to Jesus, retains his own righteousness. And so he is both the just and the justifier as the apostle tells us here.
But God is treating him, I'll put it more practically, as if he lived my life. God punished Jesus for my sin, turns right around and treats me as if I lived his life. That's the great doctrine of substitution. And on that doctrine turned the whole reformation of the church. That is the heart of the gospel.
We owed a debt to God because of our sin. And that death was suffering eternal punishment. But on the cross, God himself, he took our place, bore our sin, and suffered the wrath of God that we deserve. He extinguished it. He put it away. On the third day, he rose again from the dead. Then he ascended up into heaven. And this Jesus, the son of God, sat down at the right hand of God.
And now the Bible teaches that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. That no man comes to the father except through him. That there is one God and one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus. So that all those who come to Christ may enter in. So that all those who place faith in Christ might be saved.
But not only saved, but sanctified. Because he's the firstborn of many brethren. We're justified and we're adopted into the family of God and we're sanctified and as his children we begin to bear the family resemblance and we're further sanctified throughout this life by the very same gospel that saves us until one day when it's all said and done. We're not just saved from the penalty of sin. We're not just saved from the power of sin, but one day we're glorified and saved from the very presence of sin. That's the gospel that we preach. That's the gospel that we need. And that's the gospel that's more than enough.
[Music] [Applause]