This morning I suppose that all of us in some way can identify with that because we have known weaknesses. Maybe even this morning we feel that weakness and the Lord's strength is perfect. What a reassuring note. This last week it was a privilege for me to be with some of our single again people. We have a very fine ministry to those who are single again.
We were talking together about Titus but we got into the matter about the fact that some doctrines are essential and some are considered non-essential. Essential doctrines are those that are fundamental to Christian orthodoxy, whereas non-essential doctrines are those which may be precious to us but about which there can be some latitude even with committed Christians. The first, that is the essential doctrines, must never be compromised. The latter should not ever become divisive.
It is sad isn't it that too often we Christians seem to focus our energies in the fighting with other believers over non-essentials than we do in focusing our energies advancing the primary doctrines and the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. What we are going to be talking about the next four weeks is one of those essential fundamental doctrines to our faith that must never be negotiated or surrendered. We are going to talk about the cross sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ.
That is at the very heart of our Christian faith and it is the cord that ties together all of the scriptures. We might think that all Christians using that term in the broadest sense would accept Christ's sacrifice as being essential to the Christian faith. That is not the case however. In an article from World Magazine called Paul's Poster Child and subtitled the world's weird stuff is no weirder than the churches. There's a report about a conference that was held here in Minneapolis last fall.
It was a conference that was called Reimaging 93 and it was sponsored by and financially supported by the Presbyterian Church USA. The conference glorified lesbianism and some of the conference speakers advocated adding books to the Bible to justify feminist and homosexual activism. One of the speakers in this conference, and by the way they worship the goddess Sophia. Remember this is sponsored by one of the leading mainline denominations in our country.
They worship the goddess Sophia and at what they called the ladies supper, their communion service, they prayed Sophia creator God let your milk and honey flow. Sophia creator God shower us with your love. I need to say that certainly not all Presbyterians would identify with this. Some are very angry about it but it shows how apostate some leadership in that denomination has become.
One of the speakers from Union Theological Seminary in New York City said I don't think we need the atonement at all. That has to do so much with death. I don't think we need folks hanging on crosses and blood dripping and weird stuff. We just need to listen to the God within.
What I'm saying to you this morning is that the cross sacrifice of Jesus Christ is in fact the very heart and the core of Christianity and to deny it as did that conference is to be absolutely apostate from the Christian faith. I agree with Dr. F.E.
Marsh who said remove the atonement from the Bible and we have a casket without the treasure, a body without the spirit, a tree without a root, a house without the foundation, a sky without the sun, a checkbook without the balance at the bank, and a gospel without the message. I invite you to open your Bible with me to Luke chapter 24 as we begin today.
As two unnamed disciples of Jesus returned home on the Emmaus Road they were confused about the events that had happened in Jerusalem the weekend before and they were unbelieving. They had been in the city for the Passover feast, had witnessed Christ's crucifixion, had heard accounts of his resurrection early that very day, and then left the city overcome with sadness.
As they journeyed discussing the events of the weekend they were unknowingly joined by the risen Jesus himself who interrupted their conversation. As they reviewed for him the happenings of the recent days Jesus rebuked them for their unbelief and began a Bible study with them right there as they walked along. It says in verse 25, he said to them, O foolish men, and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken, was it not necessary? The word means essential.
Was it not absolutely a must for the Christ to suffer these things and to enter into his glory? And beginning with Moses and with all the prophets, he explained to them the things concerning himself in the scriptures. Later when he met with his entire group of disciples he did the same thing, verse 44.
These are my words, he said to them, which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things which are written about me in the law of Moses and the prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled. So Jesus points to each of the divisions, the Hebrew divisions of the Old Testament scriptures and he says that there is content in each of those divisions regarding his suffering and his glory.
Now the Hebrew divisions of the Old Testament are the law of Moses, which is the Pentateuch, the first five books, the prophets, which include Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings, as they divide them, four books. And then four latter prophets, they identify as Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the Twelve. In their counting of the Old Testament the Jews lump together what we call the minor prophets, twelve of them, and call that one book.
And then there is the third division, the Psalms or the writings, as they are sometimes called, which include Psalms, Proverbs, Job, the Song of Solomon, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, Esther, Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah, and Chronicles. And so they divide the Old Testament differently than we do, but it's important to understand that the books accepted as inspired by God were exactly those that we have today in our Old Testament, though we divide them up differently.
So Jesus says the Old Testament points to me in my sacrifice. So this morning I want to talk about this fact that Christ's sacrifice for humanity's sin is the continual and consolidating theme of the Scriptures. We don't have time to go into all of the ways in which this is true, and so we're going to turn to each of the Old Testament divisions as Jesus outlines them here. We're going to pick with one book and look at a few themes from those books. We begin with the Law of Moses.
So let's go back to the book of Genesis, where we can find the sacrifice of Jesus Christ intimated or actually predicted. Genesis chapter 2 is where we begin, verses 21 to 23. Here we see the sleeping Adam as a picture of the sacrificed Christ. So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept. Then he took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh at that place.
The Lord God fashioned into a woman the rib which he had taken from the man and brought her to the man, and he said, This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman because she was taken out of man. God put Adam to sleep so that he might create from Adam's side a counterpart for him who is called the woman. The word man in this text is the word ish. The word woman is ish-ah. The two words are related. Ish-ah comes out of ish.
The woman is the counterpart for the man. He was wounded in order that God might form for him his wife. And then God presented to Adam his bride, and immediately there was this identity, there was this union that was obvious to him. And he said, This is the bone of my bones. Her flesh comes out of my flesh. She is ish-ah. How does this picture Jesus Christ? Well, Jesus Christ is called in the New Testament the last Adam. He is the great cosmic counterpart to the first Adam.
Jesus Christ slept a deeper sleep, the sleep of death, that by his sacrifice God might create for him a bride. You say, Where do you see that in the New Testament? Well turn to Ephesians chapter 5, where in fact we see the very verse that we've read from Genesis quoted. This is perhaps the greatest passage in the entire New Testament on the husband-wife relationship.
I want you to see verse 25, where husbands are commanded to love their wives just as Christ also loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that he might present to himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and blameless. So are husbands also to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.
Verse 30, We are members of Christ's body, for this cause, he quotes from Genesis, shall a man leave his father and his mother, shall cleave to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.
What I'm saying to you here is that in the sleeping Adam in the book of Genesis we have a picture of the last Adam, who also slept in death, that out of his love there might be called forth a bride, a bride one day to be presented to him, a bride with whom he is in perfect union, and with whom he identifies so thoroughly that they can be said to be one. That bride of course is the church of the Lord Jesus Christ.
So we begin here, and I wonder if Jesus didn't begin here, in pointing to himself as he went to the law of Moses. Undoubtedly that is how Paul later was given this insight as to the significance of the marriage union and the relationship between Jesus Christ and his bride, the church. Now in Genesis once again let's turn just a page or two over to chapter 3, where we come to the statement of God to Eve after the fall into sin.
And he says, first to the serpent, verse 15, I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed. And he shall bruise you on the head, and you shall bruise him on the heel. To the woman he said, I will greatly multiply your pain in childbirth. In pain you shall bring forth children, yet your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you. We have here in this text the judgment of God upon sin in the world.
And to the woman he says, you shall bear children and do so in pain. To the serpent he says, from the childbirth of the woman, from her seed, there will be eventually a death blow dealt to you, Satan, although in the process you will bruise his heel. He will crush your head. From humanity, whom Satan defeated in the garden, would come Satan's defeat from the God-man, the Lord Jesus Christ.
And remember, when he defeated Satan, he defeated him not only as God, but he defeated him as perfect and complete man as well. And so as the seed of the woman, he crushed the head of Satan, though in the process he himself experienced suffering. Jesus Christ was born as a human, that he might carry out this defeat and redeem men from their sin. I invite you to turn to Galatians chapter 4 in the New Testament.
Galatians chapter 4 and verse 4, where it says, But when the fullness of the time came, that praise is not used in Genesis, but God is obviously there pointing to the future, when the seed of the woman would come. And he says, When the fullness of the time came, God sent forth his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, in order that he might redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons. What is the significance here of being born under the law?
Well, he says that he might redeem those who were under the law. Well, what redemption was needed? Well, look back in chapter 3 verse 13, where it says, Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law. You see, the curse of the law upon humanity is that man is sinful, and the law demands perfection. It also demands the death of sinners. Therefore, that is the curse of the law upon humanity.
But Jesus Christ was born of a woman under the law, that he might eventually go to the cross and there pay the redemption price for humanity, and redeem humanity out from under the curse of the law because of man's sin. Turn also to Hebrews chapter 2, where this theme is picked up again with a bit of a different emphasis.
In verse 14, So then the children share in flesh and blood, since the children share in flesh and blood, he himself, Christ the Son, likewise also partook of the same, that through death he might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is the devil, and might deliver those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives. And so the Lord Jesus Christ partook of our humanity, he came through the childbirth of Eve and her descendants, and finally Mary.
He was born of a woman under the law, that he might redeem us from the curse of the law, and destroy the one who held the power of death over us, that is the devil. And this he accomplished through his cross sacrifice. And so the sacrifice to Christ is in the law, in the sleeping Adam, in the seed of the woman, and in one of the places that we'll see in Genesis chapter 3 verse 21.
It says, And the Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife, and clothed them to cover their nakedness and their shame, and to restore them to his fellowship. God killed an animal and provided the skin of that animal as a covering for them. Thus you see through the death of an innocent substitute, their need was provided for.
And so the Lord Jesus Christ was slain as a sinless substitutionary sacrifice, that we might receive the covering of his righteousness for our need, and through that then might be restored to God. I remind you of 2 Corinthians 5, 21, for God has made him, Christ, who knew no sin, to become sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in him. The shedding of his blood on the cross was the satisfaction that God needed, so that he could extend mercy and grace and forgiveness to us.
Romans chapter 4, Romans chapter 3 verses 21 to 25. Now there are many other pictures in Genesis of the sacrificed Christ, Abel's offering, Noah's ark, the offering up of Isaac, the suffering and the glory of Joseph. We must stop at this point as we examine briefly how the law of Moses said that the Christ must suffer. The second division of the Old Testament Jesus pointed to was the prophets. We will turn to one prophet, a minor prophet as we call them.
It doesn't mean the message is unimportant. It means that the scope of his ministry was not as broad as some of the others. We turn to the book of Zechariah. Now there are other prophecies of the sacrificed Christ that occur in the prophets, most notably Isaiah's suffering servant of the Lord in Isaiah 53 and Jonah, who spent 3 days and 3 nights in the grave of a fish's belly. But we're going to look at Zechariah.
In Zechariah chapter 13 and verse 7 we have a famous prophecy that is called the smitten shepherd prophecy. The Lord speaks and says, Awake, O sword, against my shepherd and against the man my associate declares the Lord of hosts. Like the shepherd that the sheep may be scattered and I will turn my hand against the little ones. Here is a prophecy that was fulfilled in the death of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the scattering of his disciples.
In Matthew, the Gospel of Matthew chapter 26 and verse 31, Jesus said to his disciples, You will all fall away because of me this night for it is written, I will strike down the shepherd and the sheep of the flock shall be scattered. So the Lord Jesus himself points to Zechariah's prophecy as being applied to him. In Zechariah there is one who is speaking who identifies himself as the Lord of hosts or the Lord Almighty. Therefore he commands the sword as though it were personified.
He speaks to the sword and commands the sword to strike, to strike the shepherd. That's interesting that the word sword here is masculine. The word strike is masculine whereas the word sword is feminine. You would expect that the two would agree but that is not the case. So what is the significance of that? Well it means that it is God who initiates this violent action. It's not the sword itself, it's God who initiates the striking of the shepherd.
The shepherd whom he describes as being close to me or my associate. This word is found only in the book of Leviticus outside of this one text in the Old Testament. It means one who is a near neighbor. One commentator tells us the significance with these words, the shepherd is one who dwells side by side with the Lord his equal. And so Jehovah God the Lord of hosts is speaking of the shepherd in this text as his equal. May I remind you of John chapter 10 where Jesus said I am the good shepherd.
The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. And then at the end of that text in verse 31 he says I and my father are one. Underscoring the oneness of the father and the son picking up on that same theme from Zechariah who said the shepherd and God are equals. And the father says sword strike the shepherd. And so we have the suffering of this smitten shepherd. Just quickly turn back to chapter 12 of Zechariah verse 10 where this prophecy is given.
I will pour out on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem the spirit of grace and of supplication so that they will look on me whom they have pierced. Who is speaking in this case? Well if you look back up through the paragraphs you find it is the Lord himself who says they will look upon me whom they have pierced.
In this case it is John in his gospel in the 19th chapter who refers to this text when he says in verse 35 verse 37 and again another scripture says they shall look on him whom they pierced. It is interesting that when Jesus appears to John in the book of Revelation and says that he is coming again he refers to the fact that they will see him who pierced him.
And so not only is the smitten shepherd in Zechariah a picture of the suffering Christ, the sacrificed Christ, but so is the Messiah who is pierced in chapter 12 and verse 10 of Zechariah. I want to close by turning quickly to Psalm 22 to the third division of the Old Testament that Jesus pointed to. Psalm 22 is perhaps one of the most significant of the Psalms called Messianic. In verses 1 through 18 we see his suffering, verses 19 through 31 his glory.
As most of you are aware in this Psalm we have the grisly details of a crucifixion described to us hundreds of years before the Romans used it as a means of execution. For example, he says in verse 15, my strength is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue cleaves to my jaws, speaking of his thirst. Verse 16, the dogs have surrounded me, a band of evildoers has encompassed me. Here is the Christ looking down from his cross at the Romans gathered around at his feet.
They pierced my hands and my feet. I can count all my bones. They look. They stare at me. They divide my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots. And I have only touched the surface of this Psalm. Do you not see that a thousand years before Jesus was crucified David wrote about the cross sacrifice of the one who would be his son?
Whenever you pick up your Bible, expect to see Jesus revealed in your Bible, and especially expect to see his cross death, because the cross sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ is the continual theme of all of the Scriptures. It is the rope that pulls it together and cinches it. The point I'm making this morning in his death on the cross is the very heart of God's revelation. It expresses the depth and width of his love for lost sinners like you and me.
The cross death of the Lord Jesus Christ is the pivot of all of human history. It is the center of our story. It is the center of God's plan for the ages. Everything else that has ever happened revolves around the cross. It is the pivot. The cross sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ is the only hope for your soul and mind. It is God's only provision by which we can be restored to him. For there is no other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved.
Only one, and that is the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, crucified for our sins. There was a policeman years ago who was patrolling on night duty in northern England. When he heard from the shadows a quivering sob, turning in that direction, he saw sitting on the steps a little boy. Tears were rolling down his cheeks, and he said to the policeman, I'm lost. Please take me home.
The policeman, of course, went directly to him and took him up in his arms and began naming street after street that he knew, trying to help the little boy remember where he lived, and he couldn't. He repeated the names of shops in the city, of hotels in the area, but all of that was without success. And then he remembered that in the very heart of this city in northern England there was a city, a church rather, that was well known. And on top of this church was a large white cross.
And so he walked in that direction and pointed to the cross and said to the boy, do you live anywhere near that? And immediately the boy's face brightened, his tears were gone, and he said, yes. Take me to the cross. I can find my way home from there. My friend, today if you're lost, you can find your way home from the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. Come to his cross today. Understand that that sacrifice was for you. Come to the cross and find your way home to God.
It matters not how far away you think you are. How lost you feel. If you see that cross, know that that cross is for you to bring you to God. And trust the Savior this morning. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for the plan of redemption. A plan that is written throughout the warp and woof of the Bible. A plan that is the heart of it all. We thank you that Jesus had to suffer and die for us because that's what you designed. And throughout your word you have woven in that story.
Today Father, that cross stands as a monument to your love. Many of us here have responded and we've come to the cross and we've found our way home. But there may be some friend who is here this morning who has not been able to find that way but who today sees the cross as being the answer, the only answer for his soul. I pray today the Holy Spirit would awaken his conscience, convict him of sin, reveal the Savior and bring him to the point of repentance and faith that he might be saved.
In Jesus' name, Amen.