SPEAKER_00: Let me invite you to open your Bibles to the book of Hebrews, chapter seven.
SPEAKER_00: The book of Hebrews, chapter seven.
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to read for us verse twenty-two to the end of the chapter.
SPEAKER_00: We're going to be focusing in our time on the Lord's word this morning, just at verse 28, but I want to read, starting in verse 22 to the end of Hebrews 7 to set us up.
SPEAKER_00: This is the word of the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Scripture says this.
SPEAKER_00: This makes Jesus the guarantor of a better covenant.
SPEAKER_00: The former priests were many in number because they were prevented by death from continuing in office.
SPEAKER_00: But he holds his priesthood permanently because he continues.
SPEAKER_00: Consequently, he's able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them.
SPEAKER_00: For it was indeed fitting that we should have such a high priest, holy, innocent, unstained, separated from sinners and exalted above the heavens.
SPEAKER_00: He has no need, like those high priests, to offer sacrifices daily, first for his own sins and then for those of his people, since he did this once for all when he offered up himself.
SPEAKER_00: For the law appoints men in their weakness as high priests.
SPEAKER_00: But the word of the oath, which came later than the law, appoints a son who has been made perfect forever.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: And he then turned to make a theological appeal to Christians, particularly, about why we should be comfortable re-evaluating the existence of the Washington and the Jefferson monuments, with the two who he's talking about in particular.
SPEAKER_00: And he said this on national TV: quote, Jesus Christ, if that's who you believe, if that's who you believe in, admittedly was not perfect when he was here on earth.
SPEAKER_00: And his point was that if Christians have no problem recognizing the foibles and the imperfections of Jesus Christ, the pecadillos even to say it generous generously of Jesus Christ, then we should be okay with an honest discussion of Jefferson and Washington.
SPEAKER_00: Now, let me say this.
SPEAKER_00: I love it when people use theology to influence their politics.
SPEAKER_00: That makes me so happy.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, politics would be better if, I think I agree with this anchor, politics would be better if more people brought their theology into it, if they had the right theology, of course.
SPEAKER_00: But in this case, the declaration that Jesus was admittedly not perfect when he was here on earth represents a huge contrast with what the Bible actually teaches about Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And it's worth noting a second that the anchor in making that comment was seeking to appeal to believers.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, he was addressing it to those who believe in Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: He wasn't seeking to be dismissive of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: He was seeking to make an argument along the lines of what he takes for granted Christians would believe about Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: This is not some uneducated person that stumbled into a TV studio.
SPEAKER_00: This is one of the most listened-to people in the United States.
SPEAKER_00: And so I pause for a second to just marvel about how little is known about Jesus outside of the church walls.
SPEAKER_00: That's the point I take away from this.
SPEAKER_00: I could care less about the monuments, honestly.
SPEAKER_00: That doesn't interest me half as much as this interests me, that people in our worlds generally don't know the basics of the gospel, the basics of who Jesus is and what Jesus did in his life.
SPEAKER_00: That's the vacuum that is missing there.
SPEAKER_00: And we take this for granted.
SPEAKER_00: We often think of those outside of the church as being somewhat educated about the gospel and just, you know, rejecting it for whatever reasons they want to reject it.
SPEAKER_00: However, that's not true.
SPEAKER_00: I've told you before about a person I met in the park here in Fairfax County that didn't know what Easter was a celebration of.
SPEAKER_00: I think of my own growing up in the United States and in New Mexico.
SPEAKER_00: I didn't know that Jesus was God.
SPEAKER_00: I had never been told that.
SPEAKER_00: I didn't know about the substitutionary death on the cross.
SPEAKER_00: And I knew that Jesus, that Easter was a celebration of his resurrection.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I got that part down, but the rest of it was just vague to me.
SPEAKER_00: And so it's noteworthy, perhaps it's even mainstream knowledge out there in the world that Jesus Christ was less than perfect, that he had imperfections.
SPEAKER_00: But that is so far away from what the Bible actually teaches about Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Many passages teach the sinlessness of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Let me give you a few of them.
SPEAKER_00: I mean the most simple one.
SPEAKER_00: If you're looking for one verse that says Jesus was sinless, that's 2 Corinthians chapter 5, verse 21, which says, He knew no sin.
SPEAKER_00: You're not going to get a more simple, straightforward declaration than that.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus knew no sin.
SPEAKER_00: He didn't commit sin, he didn't do sin, he didn't commit sin in his mind or in his heart or with his feet or with his hands.
SPEAKER_00: He knew no sin.
SPEAKER_00: Peter declares in 1 Peter 2.22 that he committed no sin.
SPEAKER_00: That's another pretty straightforward declaration right there.
SPEAKER_00: 1 Peter 2.24, or 2.22, Jesus committed no sin.
SPEAKER_00: John, who is the disciple whom Jesus loved, he declares, in him there is no sin.
SPEAKER_00: That's 1 John 3, verse 5.
SPEAKER_00: That inside of Jesus there is no sin.
SPEAKER_00: I know I'm speaking to a modern audience, so you might say, oh, but that's all men.
SPEAKER_00: You can't trust men.
SPEAKER_00: What does a woman say about Jesus?
SPEAKER_00: Well, Pilate's wife declared that Jesus was sinless.
SPEAKER_00: Matthew 27, verse 19 said that he is righteous and innocent.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, well, that's men and women.
SPEAKER_00: What about an angel?
SPEAKER_00: I can believe an angel.
SPEAKER_00: Luke 1, verse 35, declared that Jesus is the holy one of God.
SPEAKER_00: Alright, but those are all allies of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Can we get somebody who is opposed to him to say that he was sinless?
SPEAKER_00: I'm glad you asked.
SPEAKER_00: Judas, the one who betrayed Jesus, Matthew 27, verse 4, ends up weeping and mourning his own action, and he goes back to the Pharisees, the very ones whom he betrayed him to, and was distraught and said that he had sinned, quote, by betraying innocent blood.
SPEAKER_00: If you don't want a declaration, perhaps you would refer a narrative.
SPEAKER_00: You can look at his temptation, Matthew 4, where the devil tempts him over and over and over again, and Jesus resists the devil's temptation.
SPEAKER_00: Perhaps you're a lawyer and you want a legal verdict here.
SPEAKER_00: John 8, verse 46, in his showdown with the Pharisees, Jesus asks the question, which one of you has enough evidence to convict me of sin?
SPEAKER_00: And the answer was no one.
SPEAKER_00: That's John 8, verse 46.
SPEAKER_00: Or perhaps you're a person that says, I don't care about the talk.
SPEAKER_00: I just want to see if he walked the walk.
SPEAKER_00: What about his actual life?
SPEAKER_00: I'm not persuaded by what people said about him.
SPEAKER_00: What about what he actually did?
SPEAKER_00: And for you, you have Romans 10, verse 4, which says that he kept the whole of the law.
SPEAKER_00: All of righteousness was kept by him.
SPEAKER_00: That's Romans 10, verse 4.
SPEAKER_00: Everything the law commanded, he actually did in his life.
SPEAKER_00: But I'm drawn to this passage this morning, Hebrews chapter 7.
SPEAKER_00: Because this is a passage that shows not just a declaration of the sinlessness of Jesus Christ, but a declaration that of the sinlessness of Christ by way of contrast with everybody else, by way of contrast with the whole priestly system of the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_00: And this verse, when you unpack this verse, it's Hebrews 7, verse 28, when you unpack this verse, you see how much of Christianity is wrapped up in the sinlessness of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: This is not just some token doctrine or something that's just by implication we deduce that Jesus is sinless because he's God and God can't sin and therefore Jesus was sinless.
SPEAKER_00: This is more significant than that.
SPEAKER_00: This is so much of our theology is wrapped up, so much of our faith is wrapped up in the sinlessness of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And so I want to walk you through this passage here.
SPEAKER_00: And if you look at verse 28, it says the law appoints men in their weakness as high priests.
SPEAKER_00: And this is a declaration of the very statement in the Old Testament that the believers, Jews, they needed their sins atoned for.
SPEAKER_00: Without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sins.
SPEAKER_00: And so the whole Old Testament law, the book of Leviticus in particular, is wrapped up around the ongoing sacrifices for the forgiveness of sins.
SPEAKER_00: There were sacrifices you would do every month.
SPEAKER_00: There were sacrifices that you would do every year.
SPEAKER_00: There were sacrifices that you would make for every category, every kind, and every type of sin.
SPEAKER_00: And chief of all these sacrifices was the day of the atonement, when the high priest would make a sacrifice in the temple, in the Holy of Holies, would be offered for the atonement of the sins of the people.
SPEAKER_00: That was the top sacrifice.
SPEAKER_00: But before the high priest could even do that, the holiest moment of the year in the Old Testament, before that could be offered, the high priest had to make a sacrifice for his own sins.
SPEAKER_00: That's described in the book of Leviticus, chapter 4, verse 3.
SPEAKER_00: He had to offer for his own sins first before he could approach God.
SPEAKER_00: And that's a way of declaring the weakness of the priest.
SPEAKER_00: He's not walking into the Holy of Holies or walking into the temple as if he belongs there.
SPEAKER_00: He's walking there with severe trepidation because of his own sin.
SPEAKER_00: He is a foreigner.
SPEAKER_00: He is an alien inside of the temple.
SPEAKER_00: This is not his home.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't, by his own nature, belong in the Holy of Holies.
SPEAKER_00: That's not his realm.
SPEAKER_00: He's stepping in there cautiously, and because of his own sin, before he goes in, he's making a sacrifice for his own sin.
SPEAKER_00: And this is what Paul has in mind earlier in Hebrews chapter 7.
SPEAKER_00: When you look at verse 23, the former priests were many in number because they were prevented by death from continuing in office.
SPEAKER_00: And that is just a really funny verse when you think about it.
SPEAKER_00: Talk about a euphemism right there.
SPEAKER_00: They were prevented by death from continuing in office.
SPEAKER_00: You know.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, he's prevented by death from continuing in office.
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: He died, is what that means.
SPEAKER_00: He's not here because he died.
SPEAKER_00: Why did they need so many priests in the Old Testament?
SPEAKER_00: Because they kept dying.
SPEAKER_00: Why did they keep dying?
SPEAKER_00: Because they kept sinning.
SPEAKER_00: The wages of sin is death.
SPEAKER_00: And so the Old Testament priesthood, with all of its pomp and circumstance and sacrifice, is very evident that it is not an adequate priesthood for the removal of sin and the changing of the heart.
SPEAKER_00: You cannot achieve eternal life through the Old Testament priesthood.
SPEAKER_00: The Old Testament priesthood declares death after death after death.
SPEAKER_00: What, praise God, verse 22 is there that Jesus is a guarantor of a better covenant.
SPEAKER_00: Because, verse 24 says, He holds his priesthood permanently because he continues forever.
SPEAKER_00: And forever is this arrow is going in both directions.
SPEAKER_00: He existed before the creation of the world.
SPEAKER_00: He's the eternal son of God.
SPEAKER_00: In time, he takes on a human nature and comes to earth.
SPEAKER_00: He becomes the king according to the line of David.
SPEAKER_00: He becomes the prophet according to the prophecy given to Moses, and he becomes the high priest.
SPEAKER_00: And he remains in those three offices forever.
SPEAKER_00: He is the eternal son of God, of course, all the way in eternity future.
SPEAKER_00: He will be the eternal king who reigns over the world all the way in eternity future.
SPEAKER_00: He is God's final prophet, having spoken finally through Jesus Christ, and that will remain true forever.
SPEAKER_00: And he is the high priest forever.
SPEAKER_00: This is why verse 25 says, He's able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him.
SPEAKER_00: The high priest was not able to save to the uttermost.
SPEAKER_00: The high priest would offer his sacrifices.
SPEAKER_00: It says daily in the Isvi, but the Greek there is day after day after day.
SPEAKER_00: This thing kept going on.
SPEAKER_00: Year after year after year, there were continual sacrifices for sin.
SPEAKER_00: It had never achieved its goal.
SPEAKER_00: And so they had to keep being offered.
SPEAKER_00: What a contrast with Jesus, who does his sacrifice once and for all on the cross and then lives.
SPEAKER_00: He keeps living afterwards to make intercession for sin forever and ever and ever.
SPEAKER_00: This is why verse 26 says that we have such a high priest, holy, innocent, and unstained.
SPEAKER_00: Holy means entirely set apart from everybody else.
SPEAKER_00: Innocent means he didn't actually commit any sin.
SPEAKER_00: Unstained means there is no sin found on him.
SPEAKER_00: No blemish.
SPEAKER_00: No accusation can even be made against him, which is legitimate.
SPEAKER_00: And of course, that's testified to at his trial, remember?
SPEAKER_00: At his trial, they were looking for witnesses.
SPEAKER_00: They were willing to pay witnesses to testify that they saw Jesus' sin and they had no shortage of people that wanted the money, but they couldn't get any two witnesses to agree on the basics.
SPEAKER_00: So they ended up convicting him on a lie, remember?
SPEAKER_00: They asked him, should we pay taxes to Caesar?
SPEAKER_00: And he said yes.
SPEAKER_00: And so then they charged him with saying we shouldn't pay taxes to Caesar.
SPEAKER_00: They didn't even come up with something plausible.
SPEAKER_00: Nevertheless, their lies don't keep Jesus on earth.
SPEAKER_00: He remains, verse 26, says exalted above the heavens.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 27, he had no need, like the other high priest, to offer the sacrifices all the time.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus didn't have to sacrifice for his own sin year after year after year.
SPEAKER_00: He makes one sacrifice for our sin, once for all.
SPEAKER_00: This is why it says, verse 28, the law appoints men in their weakness.
SPEAKER_00: Men are weak because they're sinners.
SPEAKER_00: Men are weak because they die.
SPEAKER_00: Men are weak because they are frail.
SPEAKER_00: Men are weak because of their ongoing sin.
SPEAKER_00: They don't have the capacity to walk into the throne room of God to make intercession on behalf of their followers.
SPEAKER_00: Men make very bad high priests.
SPEAKER_00: But the word of the oath, which came later than the law, it appoints a son who has been made perfect forever.
SPEAKER_00: This word of the oath is speaking of Psalm 110, where God declares that the Son of God will be made a high priest.
SPEAKER_00: And it's interesting that it comes after the law.
SPEAKER_00: And if you think about the progression here, in the terms of the Old Testament, you understand that there will be a Savior who will be a human, and this comes from Genesis chapter 3.
SPEAKER_00: So at the very beginning, God promises Adam the Savior will be from the seed of the woman, prophesying the virgin birth, but nevertheless prophesying the humanity of the Savior.
SPEAKER_00: The Savior will be a Jew.
SPEAKER_00: That promise comes to Abraham.
SPEAKER_00: Abraham has promised it'll be one of his descendants.
SPEAKER_00: The Savior will be a prophet, and that is a promise that comes to Moses.
SPEAKER_00: The Savior will be a king, and that's a promise that comes to Judah.
SPEAKER_00: To Jacob, really, but then to Judah, his fourth son.
SPEAKER_00: But that the Savior will be a priest, that is a promise that is withheld all the way into the life of David.
SPEAKER_00: That's not revealed until Psalm 110, written by King David.
SPEAKER_00: Why was that withheld?
SPEAKER_00: We find out that he'll be a king before Israel has a king.
SPEAKER_00: We find out that he'll be a Jew before there is even such a thing as a Jew.
SPEAKER_00: We find out that he will be a human, and that's revealed to the very first human beings.
SPEAKER_00: But the fact that he will be a priest is withheld until the priesthood is very well established.
SPEAKER_00: And that's because it's a demonstration of how weak the priests are, because they keep dying.
SPEAKER_00: By withholding that piece of information until after the high priests have already repeatedly died, it is a triumphant signal that Jesus will be a better quality of priest.
SPEAKER_00: He will not be a priest in the line of Levi.
SPEAKER_00: He will be a different kind of priest altogether.
SPEAKER_00: He'll be a priest over the line of Levi.
SPEAKER_00: Because he won't die.
SPEAKER_00: And why won't he die?
SPEAKER_00: Because the end of verse 28 says he has been made perfect forever.
SPEAKER_00: He's been made perfect forever.
SPEAKER_00: That's a weird expression, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00: He's been made perfect implies some kind of progression.
SPEAKER_00: Forever implies no progression.
SPEAKER_00: He is perfect in eternity past, he will be perfect in eternity future, but he was made perfect in his incarnation.
SPEAKER_00: And so to understand this, you really need to put on your theology caps here.
SPEAKER_00: You got them on?
SPEAKER_00: I see your theology masks.
SPEAKER_00: I'm talking about your theology caps.
SPEAKER_00: The one person of Jesus Christ has two natures.
SPEAKER_00: He's the nature of God and the nature of man.
SPEAKER_00: In the nature of God, he is perfect forever, in eternity past and in eternity future.
SPEAKER_00: He does not take on the nature of man until his incarnation.
SPEAKER_00: He's declared that he'll be a high priest before he becomes a man.
SPEAKER_00: It's already been declared that he will be a man, but he doesn't take on the human nature until he is born in Bethlehem.
SPEAKER_00: When he is born in Bethlehem, he has a true human nature.
SPEAKER_00: He is born with divine nature and a human nature.
SPEAKER_00: In his human nature, he is weak, he is a baby, he's dependent.
SPEAKER_00: He needs to be fed, he needs to learn.
SPEAKER_00: And the key thing he needs to learn is obedience, the book of Hebrews says, and through him learning obedience, he is made perfect.
SPEAKER_00: That's Hebrews 2, that's Hebrews 4, verse 15, that he's able to sympathize us with us in our weakness because he too was tempted, yet was without sin.
SPEAKER_00: His human nature was perfected, it was made perfect.
SPEAKER_00: Entirely without sin from start to finish.
SPEAKER_00: So that on the cross, he takes on our sin.
SPEAKER_00: The one person, Jesus Christ, with a divine nature and a human nature, takes on our sin on the cross, can atone for our sin because he had no sin.
SPEAKER_00: His divine nature had no sin, his human nature had no sin.
SPEAKER_00: In his human nature, he learned obedience, in his human nature, he grew.
SPEAKER_00: And he is made perfect forever.
SPEAKER_00: You can't even begin to say any of that about the best high priest.
SPEAKER_00: And do you see in here a little insight into how just fundamentally different Christianity is from every other religion in the world?
SPEAKER_00: There is no other religion that even postulates something in this kind of world.
SPEAKER_00: That God became man and led a sinless life, a perfect life, to take on our sins upon himself.
SPEAKER_00: So indeed, the law appoints a son who has been made perfect forever.
SPEAKER_00: Well, the sinlessness of Christ is critical, this passage makes it clearer because it proves, I'm going to give you five five things this morning, that the sinlessness of Jesus Christ approves these five critical elements of our faith.
SPEAKER_00: These critical elements of our faith.
SPEAKER_00: If you're taking notes, Jesus' sinlessness proves these five elements of our faith.
SPEAKER_00: First, it proves the power of Jesus' life.
SPEAKER_00: The sinlessness of Christ is attested to by all the verses I said earlier, including Hebrews 7, verse 28.
SPEAKER_00: It proves the power of the life of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: His ministry, his life began with 40 days of temptation in the wilderness, 40 days of temptation by the devil.
SPEAKER_00: Because the devil had finished every temptation, Luke tells us.
SPEAKER_00: That's Luke 4, verse 13.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus could begin his public ministry because he was validated as God's own son.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus could not begin his ministry until his ministry was validated by his sinlessness.
SPEAKER_00: Had he given in to the devil's temptation in the wilderness, the rest of his life would have been, of course, fruitful in ministry, like all the prophets were, but not salvific.
SPEAKER_00: Adam, when he was tempted by the devil, fell.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus, when he was tempted by the devil, resisted.
SPEAKER_00: Adam, because he fell, brought all of mankind into sin.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus, because he resisted, his life now becomes a suitable sacrifice for our sins.
SPEAKER_00: That's what's at stake with the sinlessness of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: If you say that, hey, we all know Jesus made Mistakes.
SPEAKER_00: We all know Jesus was far from perfect.
SPEAKER_00: What you're undoing there is the substitutionary power of Jesus' life.
SPEAKER_00: And the Pharisees understood this.
SPEAKER_00: The Pharisees kept laying traps for Jesus to get him to stumble, to get him to violate some part of God's law, because they knew if he sinned in a single way, you could ignore the rest of his life.
SPEAKER_00: That's Mark 12, verse 13.
SPEAKER_00: They were set out to catch him in a trap.
SPEAKER_00: The Pharisees knew if they could find one way, no matter how small, that Jesus was less than perfect, all of his preaching would be nullified.
SPEAKER_00: The prophet's preaching was not nullified by their imperfections.
SPEAKER_00: Jeremiah's anger at God and Jeremiah's disputing of God did not nullify his message.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, it just authenticated the reality of Jeremiah's sufferings, honestly.
SPEAKER_00: But Jesus' preaching was different than Jeremiah's.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus' preaching was different than Isaiah's.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus' preaching was different than all of the prophets because the prophets preach faith in a future Savior that could atone for even the prophet's own sin.
SPEAKER_00: That's not what Jesus preached.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus did not preach faith in a future Savior who could atone for even his own sin.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus preached the power of a sinless life to be that sacrifice, to be that substitute.
SPEAKER_00: So had he sinned a single time, all of his preaching would be void and nullified.
SPEAKER_00: You could say it this way: Jesus preached the same gospel we preach, but we preach it in an entirely different way.
SPEAKER_00: When you're evangelizing someone, you're telling somebody to put their faith in the same savior that can forgive you of your own sins.
SPEAKER_00: You're looking at somebody and saying, you want a common place to start in evangelism?
SPEAKER_00: The person you're talking to is a sinner, you're a sinner, you both need a savior.
SPEAKER_00: There's your starting ground right there.
SPEAKER_00: You don't have to, you know, relate it back to soccer, relate it back to chess or whatever you like, relate it back to politics, whatever.
SPEAKER_00: You can skip all that.
SPEAKER_00: Your common point, your starting ground in evangelism is that they're a sinner, you're a sinner, you both need a savior.
SPEAKER_00: That's not how Jesus evangelized.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus was not a sinner who needed a savior.
SPEAKER_00: But if you say that he had sin in his life, then it undoes the power of his life to be our substitute.
SPEAKER_00: Secondly, the sinlessness of Jesus proves not just the power of his life, but it also proves the power of the cross.
SPEAKER_00: On the cross, Jesus took the punishment from God that we deserve for our sins, and he bore that punishment in our place.
SPEAKER_00: The cross was very much substitutionary.
SPEAKER_00: The cross wasn't an example for us, it was a substitute for us.
SPEAKER_00: If Jesus had any sin in his life, he would have died for his own sins, not for ours.
SPEAKER_00: If Jesus had sinned a single time, then the cross would have had to be atonement for his own sin.
SPEAKER_00: It cannot be substitutionary.
SPEAKER_00: It can only be a substitute if he's sinless.
SPEAKER_00: You understand this with credit cards, I think.
SPEAKER_00: If you have a balance on one credit card and a balance on another credit card, and you send it a balance transfer to the first credit card, they're going to take that towards the payment that you owe them.
SPEAKER_00: They're not going to take on the debt from somebody else when you owe them money to begin with.
SPEAKER_00: For Jesus to die on the cross, he has to be debt free.
SPEAKER_00: Otherwise, his death is payment for his own sin, not for ours.
SPEAKER_00: But because he is debt-free, when he goes to the cross, our sins, and Jesus writes the balance transfer check.
SPEAKER_00: I'm Americanizing it a little bit.
SPEAKER_00: On the cross, he writes the balance transfer check to take our sins on himself.
SPEAKER_00: And so his death becomes our death.
SPEAKER_00: This would be impossible if he was not sinless.
SPEAKER_00: This is why Peter can declare, 1 Peter 1, verse 18, that the death of Christ was acceptable because we were not redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold, but rather with precious blood of a lamb unblemished, spotless, the blood of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: The fact that Jesus was an unblemished lamb is what gives his blood its efficacy, its power.
SPEAKER_00: So the sinlessness of Jesus proves the power of his life.
SPEAKER_00: It proves the power of the cross.
SPEAKER_00: Thirdly, it proves the power of our prayers.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, if you think about it, what is a priest if not an intermediary, not an intercessor?
SPEAKER_00: A priest is God's representative before mankind and man's representative before God.
SPEAKER_00: The priest is the bridge between the two.
SPEAKER_00: The old covenant priests were very bad at this, of course, because they were trying to be the bridge with their own sin.
SPEAKER_00: This is why they kept dying.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus can be very powerful at this because he is sinless, because of his two natures.
SPEAKER_00: He really can be man's representative and God's representative because he is both in one person.
SPEAKER_00: This goes against the whole fabric of Roman Catholicism, by the way, which teaches that priests have an ongoing intercessory role, or that saints can even be intercessors between God and man.
SPEAKER_00: In contrast, the book of Hebrews here says that we have a high priest who sympathizes with us in our weakness, yet is himself without sin.
SPEAKER_00: That's Hebrews 4, verse 15.
SPEAKER_00: We have confidence that Jesus can be an intercessor for us, that he can bring our prayers before the Father because he is sinless.
SPEAKER_00: A sinful person cannot intercede on behalf of others because they need their own intercessor.
SPEAKER_00: This is why 1 John 2, verse 1, John says, if anyone sins, we have an intercessor between God and man.
SPEAKER_00: We have an advocate with the Father, namely Jesus Christ the righteous.
SPEAKER_00: Because he is sinless, he can be our intercessor.
SPEAKER_00: He can bring our prayers before the Father.
SPEAKER_00: David read earlier for us Romans 8, 33 through verse 34.
SPEAKER_00: Who can bring a charge against God's elect?
SPEAKER_00: It's God who justifies.
SPEAKER_00: Who can possibly condemn us?
SPEAKER_00: Christ Jesus, he who died.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, rather he was raised.
SPEAKER_00: He's at the right hand of God who also intercedes for us.
SPEAKER_00: That's how that passage ends.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus intercedes for us because of his sinlessness.
SPEAKER_00: This goes all the way into the feature.
SPEAKER_00: Revelation 5, verse 8 describes the prayers of the saints as a bull of incense being poured out in heaven before the feet of the Lamb.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, the Lamb is the one receiving the prayers of the saints and their incense before him as he brings them before the Father.
SPEAKER_00: That's Revelation 5, verse 8.
SPEAKER_00: You have the ability to pray to the Father because Jesus is our intercessor.
SPEAKER_00: He is an intercessor because he is sinless.
SPEAKER_00: He has been made perfect forever.
SPEAKER_00: So he can continue to make intercession for us.
SPEAKER_00: That's if you look at Hebrews 7, verse 25, those who draw near to God through him because he makes intercession for them.
SPEAKER_00: This all hinges on his sinlessness.
SPEAKER_00: Fourthly, Jesus' sinlessness proves the power of his life, the power of the cross, the power of our prayers, and the power of sanctification.
SPEAKER_00: Christians are supposed to grow in godliness throughout their life.
SPEAKER_00: And we are guaranteed to grow in godliness throughout our life because Jesus is our model and he was sinless.
SPEAKER_00: Had Jesus sinned, had he, as the TB anchor said, imperfections, had he been less than perfect, then how would you decide?
SPEAKER_00: I just want you to think practically here.
SPEAKER_00: Put the theology aside for a second.
SPEAKER_00: Just think practically.
SPEAKER_00: If Jesus had sinned, if he had been less than perfect, if some of the things he did were less than wise or problematic to use today's language, how would you know which parts of his life to follow and which parts to avoid?
SPEAKER_00: How would you learn negative lessons from Jesus' life?
SPEAKER_00: If some of it was good and some of it was bad, who chooses what is what?
SPEAKER_00: How do you look at Jesus' life and say, you know what?
SPEAKER_00: Healing the leper was good.
SPEAKER_00: Forgiving the woman for adultery, bad.
SPEAKER_00: Who gets to decide that?
SPEAKER_00: Why not reverse those?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's impossible.
SPEAKER_00: You would be left to your own moral grid.
SPEAKER_00: It would be total moral relativism.
SPEAKER_00: You would be saying, I like these parts of Jesus' life, so we follow them.
SPEAKER_00: I don't like these parts, so we avoid them.
SPEAKER_00: And honestly, that's where most of the world is with all religions.
SPEAKER_00: I like those parts good.
SPEAKER_00: I don't like those parts bad, so I make my own religion, which is another way of making yourself God.
SPEAKER_00: You realize that, right?
SPEAKER_00: When you say I like these parts of Jesus, not those parts, what you're saying is that you are over Jesus, which is saying you are God.
SPEAKER_00: Because Jesus is sinless, we are all under him.
SPEAKER_00: None of us are over him.
SPEAKER_00: John says this, 1 John 3, verse 2.
SPEAKER_00: We know that when he appears, we will be like him, because we will see him as he is.
SPEAKER_00: And everyone who has this hope in him, everyone who has the hope of being made like Jesus, will purify himself.
SPEAKER_00: Do you catch that?
SPEAKER_00: You fix your eyes on Jesus, and your hope of seeing him purifies you because you want to be like him.
SPEAKER_00: It makes you holy.
SPEAKER_00: The much maligned WWJD bracelets.
SPEAKER_00: You remember those bracelets?
SPEAKER_00: 1980s Christian music.
SPEAKER_00: WWJD bracelets.
SPEAKER_00: They're effective for this reason.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is a model for us in how to live.
SPEAKER_00: He does motivate our sanctification.
SPEAKER_00: Colossians 1 verse 22 says, He has now reconciled you in his fleshly body through death in order to present you before him holy and blameless and beyond reproach.
SPEAKER_00: Because you are now united to Christ through the indwelling Holy Spirit, you can now pattern your life after his.
SPEAKER_00: I think of the song once in Royal David City.
SPEAKER_00: I love the line in there.
SPEAKER_00: He is our lifelong pattern.
SPEAKER_00: Some versions say child, he is our childhood pattern.
SPEAKER_00: He's our lifelong pattern.
SPEAKER_00: Day by day, like us he grew.
SPEAKER_00: Tears and smiles like us he knew.
SPEAKER_00: Our life can legitimately be patterned after Jesus because he was sinless.
SPEAKER_00: You see all this that unravels.
SPEAKER_00: If you say that Jesus had sin, you lose the power of his life, you lose the power of the cross, you lose the power of your prayers, you lose the power of sanctification, but mostly you lose the promise of heaven.
SPEAKER_00: The sinlessness of Jesus proves the promise of heaven because he remains a priest to this very day.
SPEAKER_00: Notice the end of verse 28, the last word, he has forever been made perfect.
SPEAKER_00: Your mind should go to Revelation chapter 5, where John is in the throne room of heaven and they bring out the title deed of the earth, the scroll, the one who can redeem the earth from its sin and take possession of the earth and eject the Antichrist and bring peace and end the reign of sin and terror and the long night of mankind on the earth.
SPEAKER_00: But who is able to do that?
SPEAKER_00: And remember, John is looking around and he can't see anybody in heaven who is able to redeem the earth.
SPEAKER_00: He can't find anybody there who is worthy to open the scroll.
SPEAKER_00: And John begins weeping.
SPEAKER_00: And there's, you know, it's the question children always ask.
SPEAKER_00: Is there crying in heaven?
SPEAKER_00: Well, John was crying there.
SPEAKER_00: Why is John crying?
SPEAKER_00: Because he can't find anybody worthy enough to open the scroll and redeem the earth.
SPEAKER_00: And an angel rebukes John.
SPEAKER_00: Is there rebuking in heaven?
SPEAKER_00: Well, there shouldn't be, but it happens here.
SPEAKER_00: An angel grabs John and says, Stop weeping, ESV, weep no more.
SPEAKER_00: Knock that off.
SPEAKER_00: Don't you know where you are?
SPEAKER_00: Behold, the Lion of Judah.
SPEAKER_00: He is able to open the scroll.
SPEAKER_00: And so John turns around expecting to see the Lion of Judah.
SPEAKER_00: But what does he see instead?
SPEAKER_00: The lamb slain from our sin.
SPEAKER_00: And he is the one that takes the scroll.
SPEAKER_00: He is the one that opens the scroll.
SPEAKER_00: Notice that all of these hinge together.
SPEAKER_00: If Jesus had sin, he couldn't be the lamb.
SPEAKER_00: He couldn't be the sinless lamb.
SPEAKER_00: His life wouldn't be powerful to save us.
SPEAKER_00: Our prayers couldn't be heard in heaven.
SPEAKER_00: Our sanctification would be impotent.
SPEAKER_00: But because he is the Lamb of God that resurrected from the grave and he brings his high priestly work right on into glory, we have hope for when we get to heaven that we will not weep like John wept, because Jesus is able to redeem the earth.
SPEAKER_00: But if he sinned a single time, the whole Christian religion falls apart.
SPEAKER_00: Fortunately, the Bible teaches that Jesus, quote, if that's what you believe in, was indeed perfect.
SPEAKER_00: Not only when he was on earth, but as Hebrews 7.28 says, forever, forever and ever.
SPEAKER_00: He alone is the sinless Savior.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, we're give you thanks that you are the sinless Savior.
SPEAKER_00: Nobody else can take away our sins.
SPEAKER_00: Nobody else lives to make intercession for us.
SPEAKER_00: I pray for anyone here today who has never put their faith in you.
SPEAKER_00: I pray that right now they would see their own sin.
SPEAKER_00: We know that the wages of sin is death, that all sin produces physical death, it produces spiritual death, and it produces eternal death.
SPEAKER_00: Those who sin will be separated from you for an eternity in hell.
SPEAKER_00: And yet through the perfections of Jesus Christ, you've made a way for us to escape hell, a way for us to escape spiritual death by being born again.
SPEAKER_00: Only a sinless Savior can offer us that hope.
SPEAKER_00: So we're thankful that you never sinned.
SPEAKER_00: That makes you better than any human priest.
SPEAKER_00: That makes you better than any perpetual sacrifice of the Mass.
SPEAKER_00: That makes you better than any sacrifice in the Day of Atonement.
SPEAKER_00: You were sacrificed once and for all, having been perfected forever.
SPEAKER_00: So we put our hope in that perpetual, eternal sacrifice that was completed on our behalf when you declare to telestai it is finished from the cross two thousand years ago.
SPEAKER_00: We're thankful for your death, which leads to your resurrection.
SPEAKER_00: We're thankful that you live even to this day.
SPEAKER_00: It's the name of Christ we pray.
unknown: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: And now for a parting word from Pastor Jesse Johnson.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for joining Emmanuel Bible Church today through this resource.
SPEAKER_00: It's my prayer that if you live in the D.C.
SPEAKER_00: area, I'll be able to meet you on some Sunday at Emmanuel Bible Church.
SPEAKER_00: For more information on our church, you can go to IBC.church.
SPEAKER_00: Or for information on the Master Seminary and their Washington, D.C.
SPEAKER_00: location, go to tms.edu.
SPEAKER_00: I hope this resource helps you seek God through Jesus Christ, serve the Lord with joy, and share him with boldness.
SPEAKER_00: May the Lord bless you.