|
Listen to sermons at FreeGraceRadio.com
|
Our Substitute, Our Savior, Our Sovereign Hebrews 1:3
He who is our Substitute is our Savior. We are assured that his work as our Substitute and Savior is a gloriously effectual work because he is also the sovereign Monarch of the universe.
Our Substitute The Lord Jesus Christ, who is God almighty, is the sinner’s Substitute. He is the Daysman, the Surety, the Representative, the Mediator, the Substitute by whose obedience sinners are reconciled to God, without whom we could never be accepted of God. The key to understanding the Word of God is to understand the gospel doctrine of substitution. Christ stood before God as the Substitute for his elect before the world began as the Lamb slain (Revelation 13:8), as our Mediator (Ephesians 1:3), and as our Covenant Surety (2 Timothy 1:9). He lived in obedience to God as our Substitute in this world to fulfil all righteousness on our behalf (Romans 5:19). He died under the wrath of God as the Substitute, in the place of his people, upon the cross (Galatians 3:13; 2 Corinthians 5:21). He intercedes for us today as an advocate in heaven (1 John 2:1-2), as our Substitute before the throne of grace. And he will stand before God in the last day as our Substitute at the bar of justice, as the ground of our eternal salvation (Jeremiah 23:6). If Jesus Christ is indeed God (And he is!), then all that he has undertaken to do as our Substitute in redemption, justification, sanctification, and glorification must be effectually and completely accomplished by his own omnipotent arm. Those people he came to save must be saved. — “He shall save his people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21). — “He shall not fail” (Isaiah 42:4).
Our Savior This Jesus, the Christ of the Bible, who is almighty God, is the Savior of his people. Christ alone is our Savior. He is our complete salvation (1 Corinthians 1:30; Colossians 2:10). And he is an effectual Savior. He worked out a perfect righteousness for us by his life of obedience to God in this world. He fully satisfied the justice of God for us in his death upon the cursed tree. He gave us life by the sovereign power of his Spirit in regeneration. He keeps us in life by his grace. And we are complete in him, lacking nothing!
Our Sovereign This Jesus, who is God, in order that he might save his people, is the sovereign monarch of the universe (John 17:2). He is the rightful Monarch of the universe as God, by virtue of his eternal divinity. And he has won the right of monarchy as our God-man Mediator, by virtue of his obedience to the Father in his great work of redemption (Acts 5:31; Romans 14:9; Philippians 2:8-11). Because our Lord Jesus Christ is the absolute, sovereign Monarch of the universe, failure with him is an impossibility. He has power over all flesh. Therefore he has power to give eternal life to every sinner chosen by the Father and given to him in the covenant of grace. He has power to give eternal life to every sinner for whom he shed his precious blood, and he shall! — “He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied!”
Don Fortner
|
Pastor Fortner’s
|