Gospel of John, Ch 13

OK, let's see. We have not quite finished up. Less than 23. Right. Less than 23 has to do with John Chapter 13. verses 1-18, and I probably should have gone farther than that, but it will lead in good to what we are going to talk about today. Just as a little bit of a background, you might say that this is the Lord Jesus' starting in 13, maybe you could call it the private ministry of the Lord Jesus, where He is no longer speaking to Jews or the nation of Israel, He's only speaking with his disciples and the discussion for the next four to five chapters until he goes to the cross is really just to them, just to them alone. So lots of this dialogue that we're going to see has to do with the Lord Jesus teaching them things about events that are going to happen right away, events that are going to happen in the future.

I think you have to keep in mind that the apostles aren't all that savvy about what's going on in terms of the teaching. They don't get it. They kind of do and they kind of don't. The other thing that you'll notice here, and you have to kind of look hard to see it, but the Lord Jesus starts out in a dialogue and he begins to teach them, and every once in a while the apostles interrupt him. They ask him questions that really sort of divert off the point a little bit. But there's a string of teaching that goes through this whole thing. Peter interrupts them a few times, Thomas will interrupt them as they go on.

So it's really a time where I think the Lord Jesus' intent was to teach them, not that they weren't allowed to ask questions, they were, but teach them so that they would have a lot in their mind so when the spirit came that they would coalesce and come together. So we've gotten down to the Lord Jesus has taken up the towel and he's begun to wash the feet of the apostles and he gets to Peter. And by the way this procedure was something that only a slave did. So you can imagine the reaction that the apostles were having when he decided to do it.

And he's doing it for what? Why is he doing this? What's he trying to show them? Nobody knows? The role of a servant. The stewardship that's about to be put into place is one of servant. That the servant is high on the ladder, and that the one who would feign to be of importance is at the bottom of the ladder, that the body of Christ is composed of those people who are servants. So when he gets to Peter, Peter says, oh, you're not going to wash my feet. And you can see why from a cultural standpoint. Plus, Peter's probably the only one that has the nerve to say that to him.

And the Lord says, well, if I don't wash your feet, then you don't have any part with me. And Peter says, well, in that case, you better wash my whole body. And then his answer is, well, one who's completely clean only needs to have his feet washed. And Peter at this point, would you say that he's completely clean? Well, maybe ask a better question. What does completely clean mean?

Yeah, it has to do with the position that believers are going to enjoy when they believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and find themselves in a position in Him, they have His same resurrected life. So if that's the case, then why do you wash your feet? Why do you have a foot washing kind of a thing? because your feet are the thing that's in contact with the environment where you came from. Like Hal said, it's really talking about poopy feet, and I think that's probably as appropriate as you're going to find it.

Now, in 16 he says, Most assuredly I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master, nor is he who sent greater than he who sent. If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them. Now, question 16, how does one perform this task today? Because if the Lord Jesus has made an example for us as believers, how do we do it?

Serving one another in love. Here's a couple of commodities. One is blood and one is water. Blood is the thing that makes you all clean. Water is the thing that washes your feet. There's a difference in those two. When you see the word water in scripture, what's it usually referring to? The word of God. So in performing this task, We do it with the Word of God.

Ephesians 5.26 says that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the Word.

Galatians 6.1, Brethren, if a man be overtaken in any trespass or sin, you who are spiritual, restore such a one in the spirit of gentleness, considering yourself, lest you also be tempted, bearing one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.

So the issue is, every single believer is totally clean because of the blood of Christ, right? But because we live in this earth and walk around in the cesspool that it is, we have this responsibility with one another to wash each other's feet. Now that doesn't mean that you've got to be the the spiritual Nazi in the group that you hang out in and you're always going around correcting everybody.

How do you do this? It's interesting, you don't want to be offensive, you don't want to be the one considered the fizzy body and the nosy one, but here's an example of how believers are to function with one another. The washing of our feet by the water of the word, how do you do that?

I've got a little note here. I don't know if it's totally sanitary or not. By putting your feet into the hands of the Savior. Putting your feet into the hands. OK. OK. Here's the thing. It's Jack's job to wash my feet. It's my job to wash your feet. It's your job to wash Courtney's feet.

To look at that and how it plays out, how does it play out? I think it plays out with the love that you have for other believers. It plays out with the prayer that you have for other believers. Growing together as a fellowship. That's right. I was just saying, growing in the grace and knowledge of the Lord and then applying that. you know, the washing is applying. So I think, you know, it's applying to where you've got, you know, to, and I think of the other one where it's spiritual, you who are spiritual to restore. Such a one. Such a one. Relations, yeah.

You know, they're, I mean, those are all part of the washing, I think. See, I think you have to start with the idea that we're all servants. That's number one, which means that we are, Galatians 6.3 says, if anyone thinks of himself to be something when he is nothing, he deceives himself. So if you really understand that you're a servant, then that's the mentality in the frame of reference you go at this. You're not trying to set anybody straight, you're trying to restore such a one to fellowship by serving them.

But the motive is your love for the Lord. That's exactly right. That's the motive. That's where I was talking about putting your feet into the hands of the Lord. Yeah, that's exactly right. Do you think it's such a responsibility that it's an imperative that you really have to do this? Or do you just sort of let it go? Yeah, I think you do. I really do. I mean, it's a tough situation when you need to sit down with somebody and say, hey look, through the word of God, what do you think about this?

And of course you probably get accused of being nosy or it's none of your business or whatever. But the issue is that sin within the body of Christ is an abnormal behavior. It's not normal for a believer to sin. It's normal for a non-believer to sin all the time. So if a believer is sinning, it's like being sick. So if it's done in love and in service, usually you get by with it.

I remember Miles used to come to me and he'd wash my feet, right? And then he'd get done and he'd say, did I get by with that? And I'd say, yeah, you did. And he would correct me about something, you know, which is really a neat thing. I so appreciated that.

Is this only, you know, for correcting sinful behavior or is this just kind of edifying building up? I don't think, you know, should they think their feet were especially dirty right at that point or they know or they didn't see. I mean, is this just kind of building up?

And it's part of that. Another part of this is not just, you know, restoring a brother or doing anything like that. talking about things in the Lord and doing things like that. I mean, I think that's part of this washing, just using the word. Yeah, that's exactly it. Here's another aspect of it. Every one of us should have a spiritual buddy, somebody you can bounce spiritual things off of. Well, that's the foot washer.

I mean, I have people in my life, I call them up and say, boy, you're not going to believe what I did. And they understand, and they restore me. I think everybody, sometimes it's your spouse, sometimes it isn't. Because there's a desire in every believer's heart to be pleasing to his father. And when you are involved in this exercise, if that's what your desire is, then there isn't any... well, self is involved to some degree because of the sinfulness of it. How do I say this? When someone comes alongside of you, who understands what's going on, maybe because they know, been there, done that, or because they know the love of God and the grace that is afforded to a believer, that makes a huge difference. That's very appealing to one who maybe his feet got pretty dirty. I've got a question for you.

It has to do with sanctification. You talk about these disciples being washed. Are they sanctified or not? Here, they haven't been, and I'm glad you brought that up, because a lot of this rhetoric we're going to see in the next four to five chapters, the Lord speaks about it as though it's already done, but He hasn't gone to the cross yet, and until the cross, none of this work is finished. But He speaks about it, when we get to 17, He's going to talk about it from the viewpoint that He's already done all this.

And from an eternal standpoint, yeah, he has. The disciples were set apart because they were the called ones. They had a life from God. What they didn't have was they weren't in the body of Christ because there wasn't such a thing at that point. Were they all sanctified like we are? No. But they were all set apart except for one, because Christ had called them and set them apart, sanctified them. But they're different. They're not in the body of Christ yet, and that's a much different environment.

Let's go to 24. My first question is, what's going on here? What's the event? Well, Passover is the weekly event. Where all this is taking place right now is what we call the Last Supper. So that's really what's happening. And how far are we away now from the crucifixion of Christ? No more in three or four days.

So Jesus is constantly telling them things before they come to pass. Why is he doing that? And you'll see over again these next chapters, he's constantly saying to them, this is what's going to happen. I'm going to go die. Peter, you're going to deny me three times. Why does he tell them all this stuff before it happens? What's his motive? He's just trying to prove to them that he knows everything?

After it happens, they'll they realize what he said was true and reconfirm what he's already said. Yeah, at that point it does. But see, right now what I think he's trying to indicate to them is, look, you need to believe me right now. So what he's saying to them, in grace, he's trying to build their faith up by saying, this has happened and this is going to happen. And he'll say a lot of times, do you believe me? And do you think they do?

Well, you know, they like to, but they don't grasp a lot of what he's saying. But I think he's doing it because he loves them and he wants to teach them that from now on they're to live by faith in facts, by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. That's why he's doing it. He's trying to teach them not to live by experience, not to live by tradition, not to live by a Jewish legal system, but to live only by what he tells them.

Okay? And I think, you know, it seems like a small thing, except when you take a look at us as believers, especially in 2008. Contemporary Christianity is based on how you feel about it, the heck with the facts. What the Lord Jesus is teaching these men, the facts are everything. How you feel about it doesn't matter. Believe me when I tell you. Believe me.

I think that's why he's telling them so much before it happens. Why do you think Judas was dismissed at this time? I probably should be reading some. Now, I tell you before it comes to pass that when it does come to pass, you may believe that I am he. Most assuredly, I say to you, he who receives whomsoever I send receives me, and he who receives me receives him who sent me. When Jesus had said these things, he was troubled in spirit and testified and said, Most assuredly, I say to you, one of you will betray me.

Then the disciples looked at one another, perplexed about whom he spoke. There was leaning on Jesus' bosom one of his disciples whom Jesus loved. Simon Peter therefore motioned to him to ask him who it was of whom he spoke. Then leaning back on Jesus' breast, he said, Lord, who is it? And Jesus said, It is he whom I shall give a piece of bread when I have dipped it. And have dipped the bread he gave it to Judas Iscariot, son of Simon. Now after the piece of bread Satan entered him, then Jesus said to him, what you do, do quickly.

Why do you think Judas is dismissed quickly now? Obviously he's not one of them, but he's got to leave for a specific reason. What do you think it is? To betray him. He's going to betray him, but why does he get him out of the room? Well, this isn't my intellect, but from what I have come up with, this is when the door closed behind Judas, Christ is separated from the world. He's on the road to the cross. He's on the road to the cross, and who's in the room with him? Satan. Huh? Satan's entered him. Yeah, Satan's entered him, and they're gone. What's going on in the room?

I think the Lord Jesus, all the stuff he's going to tell these guys, he's not going to tell them until Judas is gone, because he's not part of it. Once he leaves the room and the door is closed, as you say, then this opening up of these things that he's going to tell them commences, but Judas has got to be gone. Because he is not part of the group, so to speak. My study, he is a hindrance to further revelation on the part of Jesus. As long as Judas was in the group, Jesus could not speak to them as a spiritual unit. You are not all clean showed the disunity which the Lord Jesus recognized. Then the next question I have is, why would the disciples feel so excited to learn which one of us is the dog? Which one is the traitor? Why would they be so interested in that?

Well, I think each was wondering if it was he himself. Well, you know, it's interesting. I mean, put yourself in the mind of Peter. You're thinking it's got to be somebody other than me. John's thinking, as he's leaning on the Lord Jesus, there's got to be somebody other than me. You know, the rest of them are thinking, I wonder who there's got to be. You know what else this points up? And I asked this question last time, that we all sort of think that the other eleven sort of had Judas pegged for being the rat that he was.

No, they didn't. They had no idea that he was the one. And like I said last week, he was the keeper of the money. You don't give the money to the guy you don't trust. So they don't know. But my question is, why do they want to know? I think they want to know because they're all faulty and flawed men. They don't really know. They know to some degree they're maybe capable of this.

Maybe it's a review. Why are they hanging with Jesus? Because they think he's the Messiah? They think he's the Messiah. They're pretty sure. And from their perspective, if he is the Messiah of Israel, what's the future hold? He's going to be king. Boy, we're going to be in the courthouse. We're going to get all the benefits. And that was really Judas' whole viewpoint.

The other 11 are learning things spiritually. They're learning, as he starts to talk, like washing their feet and things like that. You know, they're starting to learn, wait a minute, this is probably different than we thought it might be, but they're still hanging with him. They're living by faith, but they recognize who they themselves are, that they are sinners, you know. And maybe the Lord knows something. They have doubts about, well, I wonder if I, except for Peter, I wonder if I'll stick it out to the end. If he's talking about dying, I wonder if I'm going to hang with him through that. Question. Yeah.

Did Jesus wash Judah's feet? I don't know anywhere where it says that he did or didn't. I mean, it looks like that he finished. He finished and he sat down and they were eating again. So I don't know if he did or not. I would I would say that he did. that he went around and did it to everybody, didn't he? He might have.

Do you think Judas had pre-planned this or until Satan entered him? No, he pre-planned it. I don't know if I'd say it that way. Jesus knew exactly what was going to happen. Well, I know Jesus did, but did Judas? that surely is not a rabbi. Is he blowing smoke or is he, until Satan enters him, is that when he goes? That he's got to leave? That he's got to leave. I just wonder, because I mean, in that one, remember that one, it's like surely is not a rabbi, he's either lying or he doesn't know at that point until Satan enters him and then it's over the boat.

In order to answer that, let's put question five and six into play. Five was, was Jesus merciful in not exposing Judas to the whole group? And then six was, was Judas acting as a free agent in his betrayal? Judas knew, I mean it says Satan entered him, but let's talk about Judas for a minute. How did he get to where he got?

Well for one thing, wasn't he already pilfering money? Yeah. And they just didn't know it. Yeah. Or the rest of the disciples didn't know. Yeah. So before this ever happens, the week before, when he's with them at Bethany, it talks about him complaining because she had this beautiful expensive perfume, and why didn't you give that money to the poor? And the reason he said that was because the money would have come to him, and he was over full of it, before it would have come to the poor. Let's talk about Judas' motive, because he's obviously called, like the other twelve, He's in the group, he's around for three and a half years, he sees all the miracles, he sees everything that's going on. So what makes him different?

Let's stick with the question here. Was he acting as a free agent when he betrayed Jesus? I don't think so. and scriptures say he was going to do it, so to me that's like being a free agent. Well, if he isn't, then how can you condemn him for his actions?

His old sin nature was... I mean, he doesn't have the two natures. He has this old sin nature, and maybe his old sin nature... that meant in his sin nature was... Well, it's... There's some people I'm dealing with now and they're kind of at odds with each other and there's a Christian leader, I won't mention his name on the tape, told this woman that her husband was one of those guys that probably was born with a flawed character. What news is that? Like he wasn't? So can you say that old Judas is born with flawed character? He wasn't as...

Well, he had the same as everybody else. Yeah. So he's no better or no worse than any of the others. Right. There was one comment that I read, probably Darby, I don't remember whether it was that or not, that indicated that although Judas was going to betray Jesus, Judas always felt like, you know, he's seen all these miracles, and he felt like the Lord would save himself somehow. And I don't know how valid that would be. And I think that's right.

He's rationalizing everything that's going on. He helped him in a certain way, and in some ways he didn't want him to die, and in other ways he was going to betray himself. I guess maybe he was trying to force his hand to show himself as the messiah that they wanted to have, maybe this glorious king that would... I think that's a lot of where his perspective is, is that he was really hoping that Jesus was going to somehow do a 180, get the sword and kick the Romans out of town. and you look at the Messiah, and he's the CFO of Messiah Inc. and he's really looking for the big bucks. That's exactly right. And his focus was all on the money. I mean, the betrayal is for money. His whole thing is, if this is Messiah, I'm going to be the main financial guy. So he's operating as a free agent right there.

He's deciding, he's observing the miracles, he's observing everything and he's making up his own mind about how it's going to benefit him. Now here's an interesting thing, the more the Lord Jesus expresses his love towards Judas and his grace towards him, the harder Judas gets. Not only Pharaoh, kind of like the people we know, where we, you know, when we were studying grace, I remember reading in Lewis Barry Chafer's book, that grace is the most hated thing in the world. So here comes the Lord Jesus towards Judas and the others in grace, and rather than receiving it and learning of it, he's hardened by it.

And I think that when he gets right down to the point, he's acting totally as a free agent. He's making up his own mind. He's deciding. But it was a slow process. He decided that this guy isn't going to be the Messiah. I ought to get 30 pieces of silver for him before it's over. He's cashing out early. That's what he's doing. In his mind, he's not portraying the Son of God. He's betraying a guy who may or may not be the Messiah and he can get 30 pieces of supper for him. Now, is he the son of perdition? Sure he is. Is this something that in God's sovereignty was going to take place? Yeah, but God didn't interfere with Judas's mind and his soul to make him out to be the bad guy. Judas made the decision all his own.

This is not, for those of you who are old like me, this is not flip Wilson Christianity. The devil didn't make you do it. You did it. When Paul in Romans 7 says, in me, that is in my flesh dwells no good thing, he takes responsibility for his sins. We're responsible. You can never say, oh I got tricked. No you didn't. I've never committed a sin that I didn't want to and didn't decide to do it. Every time.

That's what Judas is doing. So yes, he's acting as a total free agent. Is God, in his sovereignty, using Judas to carry out his purpose? Sure he is. But Judas would never be able to stand before God and say, hey, I got kind of hoodwinked in this deal. No, he didn't. was on his own now. It doesn't say that the Lord or God did anything.

One of the things I heard about Pharaoh, which I've always liked, that God was dealing with Egypt and Pharaoh in a gracious manner. Because, I mean, you think about it. Look how much time and how many times Moses went up to Pharaoh and said, you know, listen. But when God decided to not be gracious to Pharaoh, He just stopped softening him, is what he did.

He just let him be who he is. And so, Pharaoh's heart was hardened. Like it wasn't already hardened? Sure it was. In Exodus it says, then the Lord said to Moses, go to Pharaoh, for I have hardened his heart. But it's different than in Judas. He doesn't say God did anything to harden his heart, own sinful nature. Yeah.

Well, it's like if my heart is hardened towards something, towards a set of circumstances, environment that I come from, whatever leads me down to be hardened about this specific thing, you know, I can go to my friendly shrink and say, and he can say, oh, it's not your responsibility, Mike, it's your environment. No, it's not.

It's me. You know, yeah, all of those things are in play, but it's me who did it. I'm the sinner. I'm saved by grace alone. Because if I could go to God and say, well, I'm 80% cool, 20% meh, then I'm a contributor. But I'm not. I'm a recipient of grace only. The Lord wasn't precious to him. Yeah, that's right. He was not precious to him. Not that he was all that precious to the others. He was precious to John.

But, you know, as we're studying John, I more and more identify with the disciples as contemporary Christian people who are kind of going through the motions of Christianity and what the Lord is trying to communicate to them is, hey, I'm here to open up this heart dialogue where there's union between you and me, and they're all talking about fishes, and are you going to be the Messiah, and where are we going to sit in the kingdom, and that kind of stuff, and he's saying, well what about me? And John is the only one that kind of gets that. The rest of them don't get it, yet. They will. And the one who really got it was the Apostle Paul.

So why would Peter try to get John to ask the Lord who would betray him? I love Peter. He assesses the attributes of everybody in the room. He wants to know who the betrayer is. So what does he do? He picks the guy that's closest. I mean, Peter is a very savvy guy when you think about it. He was the guy, I think, that was the entrepreneur in the group. And he's the one that has always tried to figure things out from an earthly standpoint.

Let's see, he knows that John is a little bit closer to, in a little more favored position than he is. So rather than going to Jesus direct, he gets John to do it. And I think this is the seedbed of Catholicism. Because there's always somebody closer to Christ than you. And we've got to go to the surrogate. Every single one of us is in that position that John's in and the Lord would have us be in that position that we would be right next to him, leaning on him. Or put it another way, what the Lord would have us do is run down and jump in the lap of the Lord Jesus and never get out, stay there forever, because that's what he wants. Let's see. Intimacy is the thing that's being talked about here.

And you'll notice when John uses the language here, he never talks about himself in the first person, it's always the third person. Have you noticed that? Why do you think it's that way? In verse 23, this is John writing about himself. Now there was, leaning on Jesus' bosom, one of his disciples whom Jesus loved. Who is he talking about? He's talking about himself. Why does he do that? Why do you think he does that? And then Simon Peter therefore motioned to him and asked him who it was whom he spoke. And then leaning back on Jesus' breasts, he said to him, Lord, who is it? See, why does John never refer to himself in the first person?

I think so. I think he thinks that, and notice who does the loving here. Whenever you see this phrase, it's the one whom Jesus loved. He never says it's the one that loved Jesus. He never says it that way. So he being the recipient and the receiver of the love is the most important thing to him. And if he mentions his name, it glorifies him and not Christ. So it's interesting, even his phraseology, betrays the fact that to him Christ is all in all. Verse 31, and all the way to chapter 1633, Jesus' farewell address. How many times will Jesus use the term, these things have I spoken unto you?

He probably didn't look them up, but that's okay. I found six. You found six? Probably seven. I never get them all. I found six. The seventh one could be verse 33 at the end where he says, now I say to you, right before a new commandment. But yeah, 1511, 1601, 1604, 1606, 25, and 33. Well I had 1425, you missed that one. 1425? These things I've spoken to you all about. Oh yeah, I missed that one. So he says this a lot. And he does this, what he's doing is he's summarizing, he's giving what some authors call a farewell address to them.

And every so often he summarizes his teaching, where he says to them, these things I have spoken unto you, that your joy might remain in you, that your joy might be full, that you should not be offended, that you'll remember that I told them to you. That sorrow won't fill your heart. There will come a time that I won't speak to you in Proverbs, but I'll speak to you plainly of the Father. that you might have peace in the world. There's tribulation, but I've overcome the world. So he's doing this to summarize up and to show them that there is reason for his teaching that it should result in certain behaviors such as that your joy might be full, that you wouldn't be offended. Because trust me, in three days they're going to be really offended the fact that they're going to watch the Lord Jesus be arrested and crucified. This next part could take forever.

What does the word glorify signify in verse 32 and 33? I'll read them, starting in 31. So when he had gone out, Jesus said, Now the Son of Man is glorified, and God is glorified in him. If God is glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself, and glorify him immediately. Little children, I shall be with you in a little while longer. So let's talk about what does the word glorify signify in these verses. We've used the definition of glory around here as the sum total of God's intrinsic attributes. Now he says What's going to happen here is that now the son of man is glorified. So let's pull that one apart.

Who's the son of man? What makes him the son of man? What does that title mean? I could say I'm the son of Bob, big deal. What does that mean? What does the son of man mean? Well, it means that he's the representative man. How many sons of men have there been? Two. Who's the first one? Adam. Adam was what?

He's the head of a race of human beings. The Lord Jesus is the head of a race of human beings, of believers. He is the representative man. What Christ is going to do will determine the destiny of all those that are of him. When Adam sinned in the garden, it determined the destiny of every one of his offspring, right? That's why Jesus' father was not an Adamic man. Couldn't come from him. The same thing is true of the Lord Jesus. He is a representative man. and everyone who comes from him is going to be just like him.

But he's a man, he's a son of man, and now he's going to be glorified. In other words, the glory that's resonant within God alone is now going to be demonstrated through a man. Glorified is used in a specialized sense here, referring to the culmination of the divine purpose in the career of Jesus. The general meaning of the word is to magnify or extol or to exalt to a position of honor.

Now I would recommend, and Jack left me a message, I would recommend any of you who have Darby's Synoptics Go to this part in the Gospel of John. There's about three pages in there. Trust me, you're going to have to read it more than once. But it's really, really interesting about how the glory of God is manifested through this whole thing. We could take three classes getting through that. I'm going to try to do it faster than that. Here's a couple of the aspects. Jesus must die.

It was that which glorified the name of God in a world where sin was. Glorifying God means that Jesus must die. It was the glory of the Son of Man to accomplish it on the earth, where all the power of the enemy, the effect of sin, and the judgment of God upon sin were displayed, where the question was morally settled, where Satan in his power over sinful men man and man under sin and that fully developed an open enmity against God, God met all of that for justice sake in Christ. That in which through Christ giving himself all his attributes should be in exercise and be glorified and by which in fact through that which took place all the perfections of God have been glorified, being manifested through Jesus, and by means of that which Jesus did and suffered.

Here's an interesting one. When Adam sinned, the most significant part of Adam's sin was that it offended God. Now we look at it and how it relates to us. That we're born sinners, that we live in a fallen world. But the real issue, the real thing that took place was that God was offended by Adam's sin. And you know what? You don't offend God and get by with it. Now here's the problem. The man that sinned, Adam, and all that came from him cumulatively could not reconcile or satisfy God about the insult that he received by Adam's one sin. Let alone all the sins that were committed from then on.

Couldn't satisfy God's righteousness that demanded satisfaction for sin, for the insult. except for one who is the Lord Jesus Christ because he is a son of God and he's a son of man. He alone is the one creature who could die and satisfy God by doing it. He's the only one who could do it.

One, because he's God and he can satisfy God on God's level. I can't satisfy him about my sins. He's here and I'm here. But Jesus is a man, he's here. So to satisfy the righteousness of a man, or of God, you have to be God to do it. One of the, I forget his name now, said an interesting statement, he said, God, slain of God, who can understand it? But that's what it took.

Now, in play in all of that, in the cross of Christ, the glory of God is working and in play. and the manifestation of the total glory of God is going to be resident within this man who is going to go to the cross and die. The full pronouncement of what God's righteousness demands and what His holiness demands and what His love is and His grace is are all going to be displayed in that one event. This one Christ as a man who is going to do it all and manifest the attributes of God and then have himself as a man glorified because of it. It's a very difficult thing to think about for very long because we don't appreciate what it costs God to deal with the sin issue.

And it was an issue that he had to resolve himself. He had to do it. He couldn't let God, because of his righteousness and his holiness, could not say, ah, never mind. I'm going to blip them all out of existence, wipe out the first creation, and I'm going to go over here and start another one. Because the offense had already happened. He'd already been slapped in the face. And he can't let that go because he's righteous.

So, the Lord Jesus Christ, in dying, satisfies God. and at the same time demonstrates all of the characteristics of who God is. That's kind of a flavor that Darby gets after, and when you read that, take your time, be prepared to read it, and I've got some more of it. These perfections had been directly unfolded in him as far as grace went, but now that the opportunity of the exercise of all of them was afforded, by his taking a place which put him to the proof according to the attributes of God, their divine perfection could be displayed through man in Jesus. There where he stood in the place of man and made sin and thanked God for the sinner, God was glorified in him. If God's righteousness demands a death for sin, then it demonstrates the glory of God when the death takes place that does satisfy Him.

Does that make sense? No other sacrifice could satisfy Him and no other sacrifice could demonstrate His glory. Only that one could do it. Now is the Son of Man glorified. I'll read this last part and then we'll quit. Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in Him. Utterly dishonored in the first, He is infinitely more glorified in the second, and therefore puts man, who is Christ, in glory, and immediately not waiting for the kingdom.

But this requires some... that's probably enough. Those of you who have the Darby Synoptics, go to this part and read it. He's got about four pages of this, and you have to go slow, but it really will open up your eyes as to what God was doing with Christ on the cross. It's much more expansive than what you thought it might be. Let's close.

Dear Father, how we thank you for your word, and especially we thank you for your Son, who has totally satisfied you, regard our sin and all sin, so that we might actually assume the position of John the Apostle, we might lean on you, Father. We thank you and pray in the Lord Jesus' name. Amen.