Major Bible Themes

Okay, major Bible themes. In your books, we're going to talk about sin today, and you'll notice right here, right there, we're going to take two weeks to talk about sin. The book only talks about one week, we're going to take two, primarily because of Howard Malloy's exhaustive study. I thought it was terrific, so we ought to cover all that he's talking about. So, even though in your book it will only have one chapter on sin, we're going to spend two weeks talking about it. So, bear with me a minute.

So the first question I would ask you is define sin. missing of the mark, Romans 3.23, it's any deviation from God's essence.

What do you think sin is? It's all the bad stuff you used to do, but now that you do good stuff, you don't sin anymore? Is that right? No. You do good stuff and still sin? Well, just thinking about something could be sinful. What we're going to do is work down through these questions and then keep in mind the definition of sin as we go forward. We're going to work down to number one, the top ten lists and the major questions concerning sin. So the first one is a definition. The Greek word is hamartia and that word just simply means to miss the mark. So at some point you're going to have to decide what the mark is. And as we get into this, that's another question we'll talk about.

So what's the distinction, question nine, what's the distinction between sin and sins? And if you don't know the answer, you can read it on the board. When you see, and probably the best example of this is the Book of Romans. When you study the Book of Romans from chapter 1-1 to chapter 5-11, what you see in there is the word S-I-N-S.

What are we talking about? The deeds, the actual sins that you commit. But then from 512 forward, it turns out that the word is singular, sin. What does that refer to? And most of the time, you'll see a definite article in front of the word sin. What does that mean? It means the sins are bigger. If you're a Catholic, they're mortal. If they're not so big, they're menial. Remember those? I'm sorry you had to grow up a Catholic.

Sin, when you see the word singular sin, normally it refers to the sin nature. So what's the sin nature? Our inheritance from Adam. Okay, what is it? You got it from Adam and you carry it around with you always. Maybe a better question is what's the nature?

Operating system. That's a really good definition. It's an operating system. It's like you turn on a computer, you have an operating system that's called Windows. Windows operates the way it was designed to operate and it won't operate like a Mac does. Mac is another operating system. Sin is an operating system that produces sins 24-7, all the time. So, do men become sinners when they first commit their first sin? Or a better question is, when did you become a sinner? Oh, let's see, 1976, May 5th. When did you become a sinner? Before we were born. Before you were born. How long before you were born? I have no clue.

When Adam sinned. That's right. When Adam sinned, what did you do? You sinned in him. So the reason you produce these things called sins is because you show up a sinner. Operating system. Awesome. So what has Christ done about man's sins? Before that, a better question is this. If you commit one sin in your life, what's the penalty?

Death. And what's death mean? Separation from God, right? Separation from spiritual life. One sin, but the problem is you show up with a sin in nature, so you show up separated. But, you commit these sins and God says he's going to take it upon himself and he's going to do something about the penalty for those sins. What did he do?

This is basic stuff. You should have these answers. These aren't on the top. That's right. The Lord Jesus becomes a man, dies on the cross and he pays the penalty for every single sin ever committed by every single creature. Why is it that much? Why not just the sins of the saved? It's fellowship with all of us. Fellowship with all of us? More than that. Why would God demand that the penalty for every single sin be paid for. My buddy who lives across the street in the White House, not a Christian, his sins paid for? Absolutely. How come? God is just big hearted about it? Because Christ did it for everybody. But he didn't do it for everybody. Who did he do it for? He did it for himself and the Father.

You see, once you sin and insult God, there's a reconciliation that has to take place and every single sin must be atoned for, whether the person ends up being forgiven or not. God, that's the word propitiation, God has to be satisfied about the sins of the world, all of them, whether a person avails themselves of the salvation that has been afforded by grace or not. The sins are paid for. You alright with that? Is that clear enough? Okay. So is one sin worse than another?

For instance, what's his name? The one, Adam. Because he was tempted by Eve. Okay, because she tempted him and so therefore his ears bigger than his because after all, well no the snake did it. Here's the deal about sin and that particular sin. Adam was given dominion over the race. He's the head guy. He's what we call a representative man.

So whatever is true of him is going to be true of all of his offspring. So if he sins and becomes a sinner, all of his offspring are going to be sinners. So is his sin any worse? I mean, it wasn't a big deal. All God said was, hey, don't eat this fruit. I've done a lot worse than that, if you want to say worse. How do you catalog sins that some are worse than others? I'm not going to give you the answer because I want you to think about that because we're going to get to a picture here in a minute that I think might make some sense to understand that.

Will the unbeliever go to hell because of their sins? Now, when Hal and Roger put this slide together, you see this word right there? Their sins are forgiven but their sin nature is condemned. Are the non-believers' sins forgiven? The argument was, no they're not, but they're paid for. See the difference? Because the Bible says that they're going to die in their sins.

Now, there's no question that part of this answer comes right here, so they're condemned because of their union with the sin nature. There's no problem with that. And the sins are attached to that nature. So as a non-believer, if I'm attached to my sin nature and I leave the planet, I'm going to suffer the consequence of the sin nature, which is condemnation. And those sins are still attached to that sin nature. So I personally am not forgiven, but the sins have been paid for, the penalty has been paid for, and I think that's a more accurate view.

Only in Christ is there no condemnation. There's no condemnation no place else. You understand that? What about our believer sinners in position? Could I say, Steve, you're a sinner. Would I be making a correct statement? Yeah. It's not your nature. No. He's not a sinner. He's not in Christ. You're in Christ, right? You are saved, right? Check that balloon experiment out. He's saved because I figured out how to put a stick inside a balloon without blowing it up.

He's not a sinner by position. What is he? He's not a Republican. What is he? He's a saint. He's a son of God. He's not a sinner anymore. That's because of his position. How about his condition? In his practice, does he commit sins? Sure he does. How come? Because he can function outside of his position. Because he still has that sin nature in him, alive and well and functioning, trying to function. And when he yields to the desires of the sin nature, what happens?

Operating system kicks in, sins are produced. So he's got a dual operating system. Yeah, and that's something that a believer has both Mac and IBM in him, or Mac and Windows. He's got them both going on at the same time. He's got the resurrected life of the Lord Jesus Christ as his positional operating system, but then he's got the old Adamic nature churning to manifest itself through him.

Got both going on. So what is Steve's responsibility when it comes to sins? To pray. What is his responsibility? Romans 6, 13, 14 in there says, it's who Steve allows to control him. That's where his decision comes in. It isn't to fight sin, it's who's going to control him. Is it the Spirit of God manifesting the new life through him, or is it his own desires? Okay? Alright with that? Moving ahead.

Do you believe you have a sin nature? As a believer you have it. Yeah, we obviously answered that. The sin nature is not eradicated or annihilated in a Christian and that's a very important point today because there's a whole group of Christians who we refer to as one nature people who say that when you become a believer your sin nature is wiped out. What's the problem with that? If I say, Courtney, you don't have a sin nature anymore.

After he gets done laughing, What's going to be the problem? I'm still sinning. He's still committing sins and what's the source of those sins? Well, their answer is, well, he's got memories of when he used to be a really bad guy. Or habits. Ultimately, who gets the blame? You have to boil it down to Satan being the cause of your sin. Nah, nah, you're responsible.

You do have a sin nature as a believer and as this slide says it's the biggest enemy you have. What has Christ done with your sin nature? Not with the penalty for your sins, what did he do with your sin nature? Well if you believe in him you've been transformed so therefore you're zeroing in on Christ instead of doing wicked stuff. What did he do with that sin nature? The nature, your sin nature and mine. What did Christ do with it on the cross? Crucified it. Crucified it. Condemned it. Okay? Now, the problem is, is that when you start thinking about, oh well it was crucified, it must have gone away. So look at it from a judicial standpoint. Who's this babe that just got accounted innocent? Anthony was her name? Kayleigh.

Let's say that she was pronounced guilty and then they have what they call the penalty phase of the trial and the judge goes, you're condemned to death. Bang! She's condemned. She's not dead yet, but she is condemned. She's going to give her life for her sins. Your sin nature went through the trial, lost the battle, and is condemned to death. It's not dead yet, but it's condemned. Can you get the difference between those two? Okay, so your sin nature has been condemned, and so the purpose of spiritual growth in your life is to render your sin nature inoperative.

Because it used to be the controlling factor of who you were. Every thought and every action and everything you ever did came out of that sin nature. It controlled you. The big lie was that you were controlling it. Never. It controlled you. So what you want to happen is to be free from that controlling system so that you can serve God. Okay?

Now, from a practical standpoint, how long do you think it takes a believer to figure out that he's controlled or has this in nature and it's very controlling and stronger than him and all these other things? I think it takes a long time. I think it takes a really long time. You learn the truth objectively and you believe the truth, but then there's this process of having the Spirit of God work it into you so that you really recognize that you're free. I do not have to respond to the desires of that sin nature anymore. And we're going to spend a lot of time next week talking about the little nuances of how all of that works. Any questions there? Well isn't that what I just said? I'm sorry? Isn't that what I just said?

That once you have faith then you zero in on the good stuff. You know, your faith. You zero in on faith instead of the sinning. It's not in your head. Okay. That's pretty good. Whose work is that? Christ. That's the Spirit of God's work, sure. And you have the nature to respond.

Now, so what's your relationship to your sin nature? What's your relationship to your sin nature? It's alive and well and rocking and rolling. What is your relationship from a positional standpoint? You probably ought to say that. Do you have one? You don't have one. You do not have a relationship with your sin nature. In other words, it no longer controls who you are. What if you don't know that? What if you don't know that truth? And you're trying to be as good as you can. Does the sin nature still control you? Yeah, it does. So you've got to know the facts first. And like you say, you've got to believe the facts. And the facts are designed to do what? They are designed to practically free you as you are already positionally freed.

I do not have to respond. You said if you don't know it, it doesn't matter. Your position is still the same. That's right. It doesn't matter whether you know it or not. It doesn't affect your position at all. about it, you control it. Well, positionally, it doesn't matter. Even though whether you know it or not, you're dead to it. You are dead to it. If you don't know it, how can it influence your conditioning? Oh yeah, conditioning. It doesn't matter what we think or care or whatever.

See, that's how you answer the question about, well, you know, Joe Schmoe, I know the guy was a believer. He is a believer. and he went off the bridge and he's living in the world and you know he's doing all these bad things. Either he never was a believer or well I was pretty sure he was and let's say he is. What is God going to do about that guy? Is he going to lose his salvation? The reason he can't lose it is because of his position. Okay but then he would have a the battle was in himself for the rest of his life. Yeah, and he'd be losing every time. Yeah.

Yeah, that's right. Yeah, that's right. So, notice that from, if we're dead to, and question number two, if we're dead to, or separated or cut loose from the sin nature in position, then in practice, it can fulfill its desires or its lusts. It can, but it doesn't have to now. See that? Okay. How should we respond to the desires of our sin nature? How should you respond?

I'm tempting you. Here it comes. Here comes the real strength of the sin nature. Whatever happens to be a sin that you were particularly good at and liked to do, but you know you can't do anymore, but here comes the temptation. What do you do about it?

Well, if you have faith, you don't want to do it. Oh no, I want to do it. You know the problem is I've never committed a sin I didn't want to do. Every single one of them I really wanted to do them. And when I'm tempted, I want to do it. The desire is there. How do I deal with that? How do you do it? You reckon yourself separated or dead to it. What's the word reckon mean? What do you mean? You tell yourself you're dead to it, so therefore you're not going to do it?

Well, that's good. That's really a good question. Here I am with the temptation coming towards me. As Hal used to say, the bait is being dangled in front of me. And the deal is to reach out and grab it. Okay? If I reckon What's word reckon mean? To count as true. It's an accounting term. If I reckon that I have died, not only to that specific temptation, but to the principle behind it, my sin nature, I reckon myself indeed dead unto the sin, and at the same time, alive unto God.

Make sense? Okay, this is what you tell yourself? Oh, what a great question. Is that what I tell myself? Isn't that a good question? Isn't that what you do? I'm going to tell myself. No, it's great. No, it's great though. I mean, what happens here? I agree to that sometimes. Sometimes it is. I reckon myself that. I tell myself that. Yes, I think that's right. Does everybody see that? I mean, here I am on the yellow line. And here it comes. At the same time, what's going on inside of me? Who else is there? The Spirit of God is there. And what is He doing?

He's bringing to mind the truth of my position. It's on the cusp of being self-willed and continually reminding yourself of what the Lord has done in the situation. I mean, you can be on a line there if you're not careful. Well, and if you are on a line, how do you deal with it when you're right there? Right? I guess what I'm trying to say is it's a matter of continuing to keep it clear that it's the Lord's work on the cross, not my doing a mantra on it myself. Right. You know, that type of thing. That's good. That's really good. You know, even though sometimes it is, I consider myself dead. I mean, I've done that where it's like, I don't have to do it. I don't have to get angry about this or whatever.

But I think you said it, it's just refocusing on the Lord. That's what it does. Once you focus on the Lord, you're not focusing on the sin or whatever you're doing. and the spirit pointing me towards the Lord, if I'm focused on the Lord, am I going to be in sin? No, I'm going to be walking, you know, focused on Him. So I think it's that reckoning, not reckoning dead, but also alive under God, which is the second half of that. Reckon yourself dead, okay, I don't have to do this, I'm alive to God. So, kind of two parts. Yeah. But it's a struggle though, I think, because you could say to yourself, okay, I'm going to do it anyways because my position isn't changing. You can, there's no question you can do that.

So you do it and you know it's wrong and bing, bing, bing. Paul addresses that, you know, should I sin so grace may abound more. That's the exact thing, may it never be. The reasoning is, if I die to sin, why would I be messing with it? That's the reasoning. Paul says, how should I, who am dead to sin, live any longer in it? Why would I do that? Because I wanted to. I wanted to.

Colossians chapter 3, as it opens up, kind of spells out this mindset very well. It talks about our position in Christ, to consider or to reckon ourselves dead in morality and purity, etc, etc. The way that we used to walk in this. It's very nice. Here's another interesting thing, and I think this is part of the equation. The purpose of the Spirit of God is to reveal the glorified Christ to me personally.

Now, if all I ever become is a guy who knows a bunch of doctrine, even if it's correct doctrine, if in that process there isn't this growing intimacy with Christ, I'm stuck. because Christ has to become more valuable to me than my sinning does. You see that? And that's the great thing about Colossians. What do they do in Colossians 1 and 2? They lay out this incredible person of the Lord Jesus Christ who is my very life. And he has so captured me that I would rather behold his glory than satisfy whatever the temptation is.

That part of it has to be talked about and taught all the time. Miles wrote this little book called Position to Person. The person is really critical. Every time you pick up your Bible to study it, what you're really doing is learning about the person. You're learning all of these facts and reckoning and all of that, but the bottom line and underneath all of that is this growing intimacy with the glorious Christ.

And if you think about it, would Christ ever become in my life more valuable to me than the satisfaction of my sinful desires? Answer, yeah. That I would much rather not lose fellowship with Him than submit to this desire, whatever it might be. Now, what is sin? It's missing the mark. On the left-hand side is Jesus Christ and believers and God's glory. What does glory mean? I've asked the question 12 times. What does glory mean? There's a list of them. He's sovereign. He's spirit. He's immutable, which means He can't change. He's love. He's self-existent. He's infinite. He's righteous and holy, eternal.

Guess what? That's the mark. On the right hand side is all mankind. Now, this is what I wanted to ask you. And I just thought about this this morning. I'm in the shower and I'm thinking about this. The man outside of Christ, the natural man, what's his mark? He's got a standard. What is it? It's right here. It's the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. He lives his whole life, the knowledge of good and evil, that tree, is his standard. Do you see that?

But it's a moving standard. Oh, it's definitely a moving standard, because it's relative. Because man is subjective. But all men, in Adam, this is their standard. The knowledge of good and evil. Good and evil is their standard. Okay? a person becomes a Christian, he immediately thinks that over on this side are the evil branches, and over on this side are the good ones, and what I'm going to do is just move over here. I'm just going to move branches. I'm going to stop being evil, and I'm now going to be good. Right? Isn't that how we think? Or I could prune a few off. Problem is, Right down here is my problem.

The root of that tree is the sin nature. Now, in the Garden of Eden, it's interesting. Even back then, God talked about two trees. What were they? The tree of knowledge of good and evil. What was the other tree? The tree of life. Oh, wow. What's the tree of life? What is the tree of life? Christ said He was. He said, I am the tree of life.

So what's the issue? When I get saved, I'm not to mess around, I'm to get out of this tree, go down the garden and get up in that tree. Now, that's the standard. The standard for me as a believer is no longer good and evil. It's now the tree of life.

The problem you see within contemporary Christianity is that all these Christians are trying to be a Christian functioning in that tree. They're trying to be as good as they can. That's not the standard. That's a big problem. And do you see why law fits? Because law fits in that tree. What's in this tree? Grace. There's no grace over here. There's nothing but condemnation.

So I find it really interesting that in Genesis, when God set the test up for Adam, he named the tree. The tree was called the Nowers of Good and Evil. But, when the Lord Jesus shows up, he said, I am the tree of life. And that tree was also in the garden.

So, when you talk to non-believers and you begin to have a discussion about salvation, this is where the discussion takes place. Do you see that? You're talking about sins and you're talking about bad stuff that people do and they realize they're condemned and trespass in sin and what you're offering them is escape. Real evangelism says, look, I want you to leave this tree. Christ doesn't come to make you in this tree better. What he's here to do is to get you to abandon all that you know yourself to be and come to him via the cross.

You enter in as a believer into the tree of life. The root of that tree is Christ himself and the tree of life, that's the glory of it and that's the standard. How are we doing so far? When it comes to sins and abiding in the tree of life, are you Holy? Are you unchangeable? Are you righteous?

Answer, yeah. All of those things. It goes back to the issue of your position and your condition. Position. Which tree are you in? I can be positioned in this tree and try to live out of that tree. Yeah. What do you mean? What do you mean? How could you be in this tree and then jump back to that tree? Okay, great. Good question. Everybody understand the question? They're really close together. What's that? They're really close together. They look the same. When I believe in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ, the transaction that takes place via my identification with Christ and his death, burial and resurrection is that I am positioned in this tree now. And God only sees me in that tree.

Now, let's say I don't know anything about these trees or anything about any of this. So I think what Christianity is, is to live good, to be good and avoid evil. and I continue to sin. My position never changes over here, but I can certainly be living out of this tree all the time. And out of this tree, I can be a really good guy, based on this standard.

Or I can be a bad guy, or I can be somebody in the middle, sin sometimes. Oh, by the way, if you're the man in Adam, or if you're walking in the flesh, is there a time where you're in neutral and you don't sin? Understand the question? No, I don't think so. Is there any good thing that comes out of that tree?

See, there's never a time you're not sinning. Because that's the way the system operates. If I'm operating out of Windows, it's always producing Windows. It can even go to sleep, still producing windows. If I'm operating out of this tree, if I'm not walking by faith and abiding in the tree of life, I am sinning all the time.

So even that human good will be judged at the day of reckoning, will it not? It really will. It will be burned? Yes it will. And there's going to be a lot of people that are going to have big eyeballs because they weren't aware. All those programs you developed will be for naught.

Yeah. I think that one of the biggest problems in Christianity are Christians' goodness. I really do. Because we're good guys. We don't drink and swear. Take a quick side track. Why do you think God created the tree of good and evil in the first place? He wanted to trick Adam. That's what I'm trying to figure out. Okay, here's my answer. God created the angels and he created man with this thing called will. They can choose.

If you have a thing called will and you're creating God's image like man was, God is going to give you a test. He's going to have you exercise your will. Why would he create you a will and have you a robe on? He wouldn't do it. So he gives you a test. He gave the angels a test. A third of them, they say, didn't pass the test.

When they fell, their wills got locked in. Now they don't have a choice. But human beings got the choice. What was Adam's real choice? That's probably a good question. God comes to Adam and says, hey, of the trees of the garden, every single one of them you can freely eat. All of them. Tons of them. Different kinds. Accept the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

You cannot eat that. And if you do, here's the penalty. In dying, you will surely die. Got a straight at him? No problem. It feels like he could have chosen to commit other sins without eating from this one tree. It seems like God is willingly putting a trap in front of him. Alright, let's talk about what other sins he possibly could have committed. What would they have done?

That's the only rule he had was this one. He didn't have sin nature. He was totally innocent. He's like this new puppy I have. He keeps looking at me like, what am I supposed to do next? He learned everything and had a perfect environment in the garden. Well, maybe like he had fellowship with the Lord in the garden.

What if he were to lie to God, you know? Okay, let's talk about it. What if he were to lie? Put it this way. Would it have been possible for Adam to lie? No. No. Not until after he sinned. There wouldn't be any reason for him to lie. What's he protecting? He was innocent. What's that? He was innocent. Yeah, he was innocent. He didn't know it. Lying wasn't part of that operating system. Sure.

Like we were talking about last week, if you take a look at what happened in the garden, and Satan comes along to Eve and, notice the tree? Did God say that you can't eat any of the trees in the garden? Pretty subtle. She said, no, no, no. He said we could eat of any of them.

He said, well, how about this one? Well, he said we can't eat of that one, nor should we touch it. Where did she come up with that? Did you ever think about that? God never said don't touch it. He just said don't eat it. But she tells Satan, oh, he told us not to touch it. Isn't that wonderful human reasoning? Hey, if I don't touch it, I won't eat it. So I guess I won't touch it. I mean, they could have played softball with it. It wouldn't have mattered as long as they didn't eat it. Right?

And then Satan says to her, you know what God's done? He knows that this is the one thing that he is withholding from you and that if you eat this, your eyes are going to be opened and you're going to know the knowledge of good and evil and you're going to be just like God. She said, well I can't do that because I will die. He said, no, no, no, you're not going to die.

And by this time, what has he got her to do? He's got her focused on the fruit. Focused on the fruit. And so what does she say? Oh, you know what? The fruit looks pretty good. Looks like it'd be great to eat. Looks tasty to me. And not only that, it's got an additional benefit. It's there to make one wise. I guess I better eat it. See? So... So it's a power of persuasion. It's very interesting how, if you study the temptation, how he did it. He made it sound like it was a benefit to her and that God hadn't given her everything. I mean, we look back at the Garden of Eden and think, what? How could you blow that?

It's simple. If I can convince you that you don't have everything that you should have, you might go for it. Now, there's no discussion on why Adam took it. What if Eve took it and Adam didn't? What would have happened? She gets ushered out of the garden, but nothing else changes. How come? Adam obeyed. Adam what? Obeyed. No, he didn't. He ate. Or he did. And she gets ushered out. She would die. She's separated. He still goes on. He still goes on. And the creation doesn't fall.

Because he's the head. He's the head of the creation and as we get talking about identification truths and the two representative man, it's really important to understand that what happens to the head of the race happens to all those that come from him. We all came from Adam, so we're just like him. When you are recreated in Christ, all that's true of Christ is now true of you. You see that? That's an important point, I think. So, did I answer your question?

So now, abiding is what tree do you abide in? And whatever tree you abide in, you will produce the fruit that the tree is. Most of us look at the tree of the knowledge of good and evil as if we are going to spend our Christian lives finding out what the good is and try to imitate it.

That is not Christianity because it doesn't deal with the source of the issue. That's the last question. I don't know about anybody else, but through different times in my life, I've had this John 10-10 verse where Christ says that he has come to give life more abundantly. I've had that balanced around in front of me a lot of different times where it means more stuff here, more blessing here, more this, more that. And I think maybe what he's referring to is the tree of life. I think he is. Because he is the tree of life. Yeah, I think he is.

See, the life you have here, or the life human beings have there, where did it come from? It came from God creating Adam out of the dust of the earth and he breathed into him the breath of lives and man became a living soul. So Adam before he fell is spiritually alive and soulishly alive and those two life sources animate his body.

He sins. He falls. His soul doesn't die. His soul is still alive. It still has the principle of life in it. But his spirit dies or is separated from God itself and then he gets this added thing called the flesh or the sin nature. And the sin nature is the principle under which he operates now. Now, we refer to that as spiritual death. But it doesn't mean that the soul ceases to function. Now the soul, instead of being influenced and controlled by the man's spirit, which is a lie to God, is now influenced and controlled by this thing called the sin nature. which he really is in dominion to.

He's alive. Over here is a totally new source of life. And that source of life is Christ himself. I think the life more abundantly means it's really, maybe I put it another way, it's really life. This other isn't. You may be animated and functioning, but it's not life. Is that what you kind of... Any questions? Confused? No, you know, I'm so happy I'm a Christian, even though some things are a little fuzzy at times. But we're a blessing, isn't it?

Now, next week what we're going to do is we're going to go through these in more detail. You know, what is sin? What's the distinction between sins and sin? and we'll spend some time looking up some verses. So, what is the distinction between sins and sin? One is introduced by me and the other is the federal head. What do you mean by federal head? Sin nature. Do we have a sin nature as believers? Yes. And when did you become a sinner? Last Thursday. Far back. For Adam. In Adam. In Adam. Okay.

Christ did what to take care of man's sins? What was the penalty of your sins? You were going to die. Now what he told Adam? You're going to die. The problem was that Adam wasn't worthy to pay the penalty, was he? Didn't we have this discussion one time about, no it wasn't you, it was somebody else that said, well you know God could have just, he'll have me die to pay the penalty for my sins. Why isn't that good enough? Well maybe Courtney will die for me. Or the two of us will die for my sins. Or maybe all of you guys will all die for my sins. Why isn't that good enough?

It has to be an unblemished lamb. That's right. It has to be an unblemished lamb. So which of us are unblemished? So God had created another Adam unblemished. Would that have been good enough? Think about that. Let's say God said, okay, let's see, I need that unblemished lamb. So I'm going to create, I'm going to start over, get a little dust together, breathe in at the breath of life, and this is going to be an unblemished lamb, and that human being is going to die for the sins of the world. Would that have been enough? Answer, no. Why not?

Because when you insult God, it takes God to fix the insult. The example I know is that you come over to my house and Famous bites me in the ankle, your dog. And I say to you, I need satisfaction for that. And you say, well what can we do? See, you've taken the place of the insult to me that the dog did to me by biting me and you're going to satisfy us because we're on the same level of creation. And the dog did it, not me. Even though the dog did it, right?

So God says, these creatures that I created, they all sinned. And I need to be satisfied about that sin, but only somebody in the Godhead can do it. And that's why Christ became a man. It took uniquely him to satisfy God about sin. And it took his death to do it. So like you say, the grace is... And oh by the way, once he's done with the satisfaction part, does that automatically mean we're in? Do we get salvation? He took care of God's problem with sin. He satisfied him. God rose him from the dead. Now do we automatically get salvation? No. We don't, do we? Why not? You gotta believe. Now hold on a minute.

Salvation is by grace through faith. If God was under any obligation to offer you and me salvation it would not be gracious. He was under no obligation after he satisfied to give us salvation. He did it purely out of the goodness of his heart and he offered it graciously. He didn't have to do that. He was under no covenant or law to do that. That makes all of salvation, the whole premise and the whole principle, it makes it gracious.

It has to be. So, if we live in grace, if we start in grace, we should continue in grace and abide in the tree by grace, because that's the operating system in the tree of life is grace. That's how it operates. That means God's unlimited and unmerited blessing towards you based on what Christ did on the cross. It's unlimited and unmerited. You're the recipient. Father, how we thank you for your word and how we thank you for the grace that we live under and the tree that we live in. that we may continue to grow in the knowledge and grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. We pray in his precious name, Amen.