Which Side of the Cross - Lesson 13
JD McCulley · Jul 23, 2017
Which Side of the Cross, No. 28
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/492663327508

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Alright, so we are on lesson 13. We're on question 4. We're just trying to finish up the last little bit of that. So these questions come out of the paper by Schaeffer, which has been the study material for the last couple weeks, several weeks rather. And we're looking at section 6 and 7 of that. It's a lot of big words. Schaeffer likes big words.

He's a theologian, right? And so we're getting a little theological the last several weeks, and there's nothing wrong with that. Sometimes we need to look at those words, and I've always taken it upon myself to not necessarily shy away from the big theological 10-cent words or whatever cent they're supposed to be, but to make it understandable and to maybe come up with synonyms that are more easy to remember. But at the same time, those words do have their place and in many cases they are directly out of the scripture. So we need to have an accurate understanding of these words. We've been looking at this issue of forgiveness and how it relates to the Lord and how does it or does it not relate to God's grace towards us.

We looked at question number four. We said, what is the threefold sentence that every unbeliever is under? So I wrote that down. Unbelievers are under these three different sentences. We said that unbelievers are sinners by practice, sinners by nature, and sinners by divine decree. So we got through the first two, but we left off with that divine decree. So the question to you now Today's class is, what does it mean to be a sinner by divine decree? What does that entail? Let me get those brains fired up. Those lips are moving. Do we need to do lip stretches? What does it mean that unbelievers are sinners by divine decree? Did God decree that unbelievers are sinners?

OK. The old nation. All right. Is that where it all went? Also, I think just the fact that the father and the son, you know, created the plan to save us by divine decree to save all men. So I guess in this case, some believers by decree are sinners and we need to be a solution. That's right. I think you guys are both right. So what is a decree? What does that word speak to? Who decrees things? I decree X. I decree Y. Who decrees?

God. God does? And God as what? A judge. As a judge. Okay. So we're looking at God as judge. Is God judge? He's a divine judge. And you're right. It goes all the way back to Adam. And anything that is not of faith is what? Sin. So we've got Romans 14, 23 reminding us that by divine decree anything that is not of faith is sin.

And that was the case for Adam. And that as a federal head We've used that term in the past, that Adam was our federal head, just as Christ for believers is a federal head. We have all those who fall under Adam's progeny, being all mankind, have hanging over them the divine decree of sin, and therefore being a sinner by divine decree.

Does that make sense? So we have to make sure that we understand that every unsaved person is under this sentence. Question number five says, when God thus forgives absolutely and eternally through the cross of Christ, what is He acting as? Because of this, right? So yes, by divine decree, this is the case, this is the sentence for a non-believer.

However, He did not leave it there. as judge, he offers forgiveness, right? And so when God forgives absolutely internally and eternally through the cross of Christ, what is he acting as? On the cross, when he's forgiving, he's acting as judge. He's satisfying this problem.

So this is the part of what God did as a judge, and we need to differentiate that from what it means to be gracious. So, because of his salvation, We have grace achieving something along these same threefold sentences. So, when an unbeliever chooses to believe, through his grace, God does what? By practice, what is man now? He has forgiveness, right?

What does man need by way of a nature? He's under the sin nature. What does God do in order to address this nature problem, this sin nature problem. A new nature. A new nature, okay. So we could say, and this is just another one of those big words, but the imputed righteousness, and that is new nature, right?

It's imputed. What does that mean? Put to his account. That's right. Put to your account. Christ's very righteousness. It's your new nature. It's Christ's nature. Any questions? Do you want to talk about imputed for a minute? Sure. If through the cross of Christ I've been positioned and taken out of that and placed into Christ, that's not an imputation. I have. because of my position in Christ, the very righteousness of the resurrected Christ. It isn't imputed to me. I have it, my position. Well, that's what imputed means. It's now yours. It's on your account.

Well, let's take Abraham. Abraham was accountant and righteous. because of his faith, it's imputed to him, but he's not in Christ and he does not possess the righteousness of Christ. And so, when the verse says that I'm the righteousness of God in Christ, I don't think it's a divine imputation, I think it's a possession that the believer has because of his position. Chicken or the egg? Yeah, that might be a chicken or the egg. But imputed doesn't mean imparted. No. No, it means completely possessed.

We all possess an account, right? I mean, that's what transgression is. We all stand, by divine decree, as having an account that is full of sin because of our sin nature, who we are. And so, in order to be forgiven, you have to no longer be You no longer have to have an account of sin, you have to have an account of righteousness. And that is imputed by the person of Christ himself. Right?

I mean, it's an accounting term. And so there's different aspects that salvation, we look at it from a judicial perspective. The word imputed happens to be more of the accounting perspective. So different words, and even the word forgiveness itself, these have to do with more of God as judge as opposed to accountant, right? Accountants don't forgive, they look at the account, right? So I would just say that there's different ways of looking at it based on the way the word falls in the scripture.

I used to think that I was before the judge and imputation is Christ closed me before the Father. But that's not... Christ did what now? Closed me before the Father in His robe. That's not it. I'm in Christ now. It's... That's the second part. So by divine decree, what does the Lord decree of you now, as judge? Justified. That's right.

And this is all based on the person of Christ. And it's offered to the whole world. This forgiveness, as judge, is offered to the whole world. However, it's only possessed by what? Faith. By faith, and that is of grace. Okay? And so that's for the unbeliever. We're going to start to transition now to looking at what... Yeah, question.

I guess I'm a little confused and maybe it has to do with just my... who I am came into the world being given righteousness and now, like he says, have I put on the robe of righteousness that's, you know, that I now possess? I was a sinner, now I'm righteous. My confusion is this, because the scriptures, I don't find the word imputed.

I find the word that we're a new creation. That's there. And as a new creation, that would mean I'm something that I was not in the past. I'm new and in nature, new and kind. And that to me, to use the word imputive is almost like I've taken the old sin nature and dressed him up. That doesn't make sense. So you want to get back to almost what Mike, your clarification of what you're saying. I think the imputive gives the impression that it's nothing of us. And that's where I think or that word means it's nothing of us.

That position is solely based on what Christ did. And the imputation is that it's nothing of us. We didn't deserve it, earn it, do anything for it. It was imputed on us, that position. And that's why I don't understand what you're saying. The imputation I think is that it's nothing of us. Our position was imputed. We were given a new life. That was by divine decree and all these different things. I don't understand. Here's the problem I have with what Roy's talking about. If I think about imputation, it's something that is given to me, but there's no intrinsic change on my part.

When Abraham was accounted righteousness before God, was there anything that changed about who Abraham was? He was still, from Adam, a sinner by practice and nature. But I, being in Christ, I'm none of those things anymore. In the resurrected Christ, I'm no longer a sinner by definition. And I can't be decreed by God to be a sinner anymore because I'm not. I'm in Christ.

My position is everything. And so he's not imputing something to me in the sense that there's no change in me, there's a total change in me in terms of my being crucified, buried and resurrected with Christ. The resurrection is newness of life, newness. And newness by very definition has righteousness as part of that. And it's not an imputation, it's something I own by existence in Christ.

But what came first was the position. How do we get the position? Righteousness was credited to Abraham's account, so he was imputed Christ's righteousness. It was retro-applied after the cross, but we know that the cross covers all past, present, and future sin.

I was just thinking between your two scenarios there, is it death? Yes. And I think a lot of times as believers... That's what you hear, there's no death in between them. You have forgiveness, you have imputed righteousness, and you're justified, but there's not a death that's taken place. Yeah, and so, just maybe kind of daisy-chaining these all back together, you are in Christ. You're not clothed in Christ, separate from what he did, his work.

You are in union with him, okay? We're going to talk about union in a moment. It's not just a covering, as we talked about last week. It's not just that your account has been credited Christ's Righteousness, you are in Christ now. So, he is your advocate. We're going to talk about that. He's literally your advocate, and you are placed in union with him. Roy, I didn't honestly understand what your confusion was, but I think that... Could I put it another way? Sure.

When we think of the law, we have to then have a satisfaction of the law. When we think of grace, there is no satisfaction of the law anymore. There is a new in-kind existence. There is a reality that we are stepping into that is separate from the law. That's what death means. Separation. And so we are separated from a legal system into a grace system. And it is in that system that we are declared righteous. Everybody in this room is indwelled by God now. That's totally different from the Old Testament. There, the Holy Spirit came upon. Now, God dwells within. It's totally different. Yeah, and so I'm definitely not disagreeing with any of that.

I think the question has certain restrictions to the content of what we're talking about or focusing on at this point. I think if you've, maybe for those of you that are coming in fresh, that this might sound like a theological discussion. This is not the case of this class. This is not how we communicate. Am I right? Nine out of ten times.

However, the content of this particular lesson has us looking at Schaeffer's notes on this, and it doesn't mean that we can't get off the beaten path and cover things that we've talked about in the past or will be covering in the future, and I appreciate your thoughts on all of that. I wouldn't disagree whatsoever.

I just wanted to try to make sure that we understood that when you say satisfaction, there is a satisfaction by God. We use the word propitiation for that, and it's a part of some of these next questions that we have. So I'll tell you what let's do. Maybe since there's a little bit of defining that we as teachers need to do as far as where imputation is or isn't, let me just make sure that as a class we understand that everything that Roy just said is true, and I believe that we are 100% new creatures, one of a kind, unique, and that is all made possible through the death of Christ and our belief in Him.

I think that boils down to the distinction between the Church and the Old Testament saying. Well, it does. We definitely have differentiated between the law and grace as the environment that we now live. And you're right. We are in a new reality, totally distinct and separate. The law has been satisfied through Christ himself. His satisfaction is because of his Son.

And because of the offer of salvation, we have the opportunity as as an unbeliever, to believe, therefore receiving the gracious gift of God and experiencing an entirely new kind, a new kind of life, separated from the entire old system of the law and entering into the new entirely different system of grace, which is all experience by beholding a person, and you're indwelt by that person.

And so those are all different parts of the class that we've talked about in different ways. But to answer the question, what is the threefold sentence of the unbeliever? There we go. That's what we've got here. In terms of the next question, we'll see if we can't just differentiate one specific point here.

When God thus forgives absolutely and eternally through the cross of Christ, he's acting as a what? We've talked about it already so many different times. He's acting as a judge. So, judicial forgiveness is not an act of grace, right? That's what we're trying to make the point of.

Because he's satisfying... Forgiveness is being dealt with from the perspective of God satisfying the sin problem. That the fact that He offers salvation to you through belief is gracious. But He's satisfied with or without you believing. And forgiveness is available with or without you believing. That's His doing as judge. So forgiveness is not grace. It's not an act of grace. So number six.

This will help us roll into some of the stuff that you guys maybe like to talk about a little more. What is the difference between judicial forgiveness and family forgiveness? So now we're talking about something different. When you hear that question, what rolls out of your mind in terms of the difference?

I was thinking, that word family, is it really talking about the family of God and the body of Christ? So if you're outside of that, you're really not forgiven. Once you believe, you're in that family, you are forgiven. It is sort of the end of reverse forgiveness, but as far as the confessor's sins...

Okay, now you're getting a little bit more specific. That's good. I think that's what we're driving for here. Yeah, I think you stated that well. Does that make sense? Can you guys build on what Russ was saying there? Yeah. Judicial forgiveness would be... For all those persons we were just talking about who are under the decree of God and that are sinners, in order to forgive them, you would say, they're outside of the family. So in order for them to be forgiven, they have to believe in the person of Christ as an example. My friend that lived in the White House over here.

Are his sins paid for? Yes, they are. Is he forgiven? No, he's not. Because he's not in crime. We don't think. This is a hypothetical White House guy that's over there. We don't know. God's remedy for his sins And His sinfulness is different than it would be for your sins, because you are now a member of the family. And so God deals with us differently than He deals with, I suppose, men that live across the street in the White House.

So, you mentioned 1 John 1.9. Can you read that for us? forgive us our sins, and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Okay. Is that believer or unbeliever? Believer. Okay. Is that family? Yes. Okay. So 1 John 1, 9. Okay. So here we have confessing. And over here, what does the Lord require for judicial forgiveness? To be a member of the family. Believing, right?

Now, can we break it down into position and condition? Which one is positional? And which one is conditional? They're both position? Right? So, when you believe, Where are you placed? Right. So by believing, you are offered a new position, right? Now, when you sin as a believer, 1 John 1.9 says that there is a plan for that, right? And it's through confessing. And this has to do with a family relationship. Does your forgiveness, is the forgiveness that you experience under confession, as a believer, positional?

No. Is it conditional? I think so. Why? You already have a position in this. He's talking about fellowship. That's right. I'm talking about fellowship. Because, and what we're looking at is that from a judicial perspective, God is satisfying himself as judge. but as a son or daughter living in the body of Christ, you're now dealing with the Father. The response is still one of grace, an opportunity of grace, and that's confession. God doesn't say, go back and believe in the gospel and you'll have fellowship with me. He's saying, that's a done deal. Judicially, that's been satisfied. It's been imputed, just kidding. Justification has completely taken place. He's justified you as righteous in Christ.

So now it's a family relationship, right? And so confession of sin allows the opportunity of what Roy just mentioned, and that is fellowship, right? So here we're going to add fellowship. Why is this conditional though? I mean, I just want to hear you guys kind of communicate to me. As a family, can you get out of fellowship with the Father? Yeah, you can. And what does that look like? What does that mean? Communication is severed between the father and the mother. Yeah. And it has to be fixed. If it's fixed like that, then it's not going to speak to you. What does confess mean? Say the same thing. Agreed, say the same thing as.

So really, both of these are a change of mind, aren't they? Believing under the judicial side of things is changing your mind about who is God and what He's done for you, right? We said that all sin stems from that same root thinking is that I know better than God. Under the ministry of the Holy Spirit to an unbeliever, they're convinced that they are that they no longer know better than God about their stand in terms of sin.

They recognize God's truth and they believe and they agree with Him about that. Same thing happens, but it's under a different set of circumstances as a family member. Same thing happens for the believer in the sense that they are coming to agree with God that He knows better than I do about my particular issue, and I'm going to call it what it is. I'm going to agree with the Father that what I'm dealing with is sin, and it's causing a break in fellowship with Him. And there's no restoration without that daily fellowship through confession. You can't be restored to fellowship without agreeing with God about your sin.

What if you just don't do it? What if you don't just do it? Say that another way. One of the kids in Sunday school, I asked the kids, what do you do when you're sinning? One kid said, well, I just think about it and then I move on. Yeah, I remember that. Well, what about it? I thought about it and I thought, now to heck with that, I'm moving on. So what's the scenario there?

Child discipline. Possibly discipline, yeah. See, the problem is not that God is sitting there. In terms of the family relationship here, He's not sitting there saying, Oh, this and this and this and this. I just can't believe you did this and this and this. I can't. If you would have just not done this, He's not like an earthly father in that sense. I mean, I can't believe that. You just did that. That's not the relationship that we have with the Father.

It's more of, there is There's so much about our union that you don't know about right now. And this is standing in the way of us growing. Or you do know about it and you just turned your back. You may already know. But there's so much that he wants you to be holding him and you're now beholding yourself. You've taken your eyes off of him and now you're focusing on your own.

I think this is where two things I always go to. God's in control and the other half is that he has eternal love for us. He's not out there doing what you said. His whole being is that he loves us with an eternal love. He's always trying to draw us back. And that's through the conviction of the Holy Spirit. drawing us back to Him. We're the ones that went away from Him. He's always 100% after us. Pursuing us. We're the ones that turn our back. And that's the confession is, you know, I'm agreeing with you. I'm not acting who I am in Christ. And God is not, you know, the one with the big stick wanting to pound you.

Because, like maybe a earthly father Now they have all the kids around. And I think that's what believers need to understand is that He's always, after you're pursuing Him, in love. And that this confession is to bring you back into that fellowship. And I think of this term family, I almost like body better rather than family. I mean, scripturally, body and all that. Family, you can get into some dynamics there. We can't get out of the body. So anyway, but it's the thought that he's eternally always loving you.

And he's talking about persons who might take the Lord's table in an unworthy manner. And he says, to let a man examine himself, so let him eat the bread and drink the wine. For he who eats and drinks in an unworthy manner, eats and drinks judgment to himself, and wasn't discerning the Lord's bodies. For this reason, many are weak and sick among them, and why many sleep. For if we would judge ourselves, we would not be judged. But when we are judged, we are chastened of the Lord that we may not be condemned of the world.

I think that is an incredibly blessing verse. Because if I'm stubborn, and I've said to God, I like what I'm doing, and you can walk with men. He's so gracious to us that he will intervene as a loving father. and effect judgment on us to restore us, which is a matter of grace. It's incredible that he would even do that. He would judge us in the sense that we would wake up and see what's really going on, so that he can cause the fellowship with him to be maintained. Which I think is terrific, because no matter how stubborn I am, he's always, like the court in Shanks, pursuing me constantly. Yeah, I think the judging yourself is consistent with the idea.

I mean, that has to take place in order for you to confess, right? So, taking the time to understand your own attitudes and behaviors versus what the Lord has said are the facts of the matter, judging yourself rightly according to those as He said they are, and then coming to agreement with Him about that. We keep slowing you down, but the one thing I've realized in my own self is that first John 1 and 9, you read it, and sometimes you think, how on earth did God keep forgiving me when I agree with him I was wrong? But that is the spiritual that can really take it to heart and know it. you really do know that he's forgiven, even though logic would say, how can a God forgive me if I've heard it 700 times? Well, I also think that part of that was the agreement of God about not only what he did to get forgiveness for his meekness, but what he did to me by crucifying me with Christ, burying me, resurrecting me. In essence, he says to me, well, You know, who are you? Who do I say you are? Oh, that's different than who I think I am. And my agreement is the fact that, you know, it's like Paul says in Romans, shall we sin that grace may abound? The answer is no way, because how shall we who die to sin live any longer in it? Perfectly logical. Why am I living in this? Because it isn't even sinning for Christians insanely.

Here it is. spiritual insanity is what we've talked about before. So let's look at the next question. I appreciate those thoughts, guys. I think it's all helping to just define it a little better, understand it a little more. Number seven. So we've covered this. I just want to make a few clarifications.

Does God require the same act from the lost and the saved when it comes to sinning? Now, we talked about those two, right? So, where does grace kind of enter the picture here? We've got, on the one side we've got believing, and then we've got confessing. This is just kind of cleaning up what we were just working on a little bit. So what does believing lead to with God? It does. You probably wouldn't necessarily come up with this word we mentioned a few times, but I'm just going to maybe draw it out. Believing leads to union with God, right?

That's the union part. And it's very important that we not just look at it from the accounting perspective or the judicial perspective, but look at it as you're being brought into union with the body. Okay? Which is the head. Confessing leads to what? Okay? Communion. Right? Same thing. Fellowship. Communion with Him. And then finally, I guess we should recognize that disbelieving union is unto salvation, correct? Salvation. And this confessing and this communion is unto what? We've got to talk about restoration.

And all of this is grace. This is God's attitude of grace. But the forgiveness that makes all of this possible is judicial. It says judge. But this is where we see the graciousness of God through the opportunity to be saved and the opportunity to be restored.

I think, you know, we've spent a lot of time on this, but I think it's critical, especially today, because I don't think I've heard any profiled evangelist, pastor, televangelist, teacher give the gospel message without telling the people they need to confess their sins.

They don't need to do that. And so there's a confusion right at the beginning that somehow my salvation is based on my being able to confess my sins. And that's not true. It's not true at all. And if that's all I ever did was confess my sin, I never got saved. Coming out of a Catholic environment, that's what they felt trying to convince you that you need to confess your sins in order to get back on the good side of God.

How many of you guys, don't show me your hands, but how many of you experience constantly going up to the altar and dealing with stuff? Yeah, okay, okay. Some of us were Baptists, others were whatever. But yeah, it was coming down into the altar, you know, and for those of us that grew up with that concept, this was the altar and you got to kneel down before it and deal with it. And you had to deal with it quite often. Now, it wasn't necessarily phrased in the same sense as a Catholic confession. But boy how did it feel the same way. And it was often accompanied with certain type of music in the background.

It was all designed to kind of lead you to feel sorry for your sin. That's right. Right? And so here you are, focusing on yourself, confessing your sin, feeling sorry for your sin, and yes, maybe that... and I look back over those years and I realize that I was coming to know the Lord through those events. It wasn't as if I was simply confused and wrong. Although that was the case, I also intimately wanted to know the Lord, and I thought that was the means by which I did it. And I later came to see that no, that's not how it happens.

This is what's going on for me, and it doesn't matter where I'm at, or what music's playing, that my family relationship to the Father is one that is ongoing and consistent at any point in time in my life. And it's not contingent upon an altar or a song. or anyone seeing me raise my hand when we're supposed to have our eyes closed. You know, have you ever been in that situation? Show of hands, don't go peeking, but show of hands if you...

I think adversely too, there's a thought process within the body of Christ that if someone turns their back on Christ and begins to walk in flesh, the discussion becomes, well I wonder if they were ever really saved. They don't need to believe. No they don't. They need to confess.

Yeah, and this is where we get into a lot of those issues of lordship, salvation, making him lord of your life. What's interesting is a lot of confusion in evangelical circles is confusing this with this. And using terminologies that exist here with what are meant to be understood here. himself gave us an illustration of this in the father-son relationship of the prodigal son. Isn't that a perfect illustration of what you're talking about?

It is. So in that illustration, does the son ever lose his relationship with his father? But he did lose fellowship with his father, didn't he? However, the father was constantly recognizing that his son was out of fellowship and available for restoration at any point in time and eventually the son judged himself as wrong and sought communion with his father again or fellowship with his father but the family relationship never changed and I explain that to my kids a lot of times too when you believe it's a one and done deal you are now in a relationship whether you like it or not prodigal son or not You're in a relationship and the father is the, he's the one that's responsible for keeping that intact, not you.

The other thing which this always leads to is what I've said many times. The importance of the identification truths that we spent the first third of this class on is that, and I believe there's billions of people who, because it's just by simple faith, there's no changes, it's by faith only.

You're saved by grace through faith. And I think there's billions of people who are saved because they believe in who Christ is and what he did for them. It's the growth process that is stunning because they don't understand the co-crucifixion in Romans 6. And that's where a lot of this, I think, confusion comes in.

I can be better, if I confess I'm going to be a better person or a better Christian. You are in Christ. Your identity is in Christ. This is just restoring the fellowship. It's kind of the misconception that if I confess, God's going to be pretty happy with me. He's going to just shine on me a little bit more because of what I did. And this is where I think a lot of the struggles happen. There are billions of believers who are, by simple faith, are believers.

But the growth happens when you understand a co-crucifixion. I am a new creature in Christ. to be dragged down by that. And so I think, again, it goes down to the root, I think, of the identification, knowing that I've been co-crucified, I have a new life, 2 Corinthians 5, 17. New creature, new in kind, new in quality. And Galatians things that wind into this, and why we get confused, or why we struggle between the two.

It's that understanding. And when you start understanding, and that's when the growth happens, I think, you start understanding these things. It's freeing or liberating in your relationship with the Lord. Yeah. No, I agree completely. I think that not having that understanding might lead a person to do kind of what we see in question number eight. So I'll read that for you.

Why is it highly inconsistent to please God to be gracious or to try and coax Him to be good? Have you ever thought that? God, just be gracious to this person. I want to experience your grace, Lord. Shower your grace on me. different types of songs out there that have God showering grace on people. And us asking him to be gracious. Be gracious to this person he doesn't understand yet.

Is that consistent with what we see as a revealed attitude of God? Grace is one of his attributes. Say it again. Grace is one of his attributes. So, is asking Him to be gracious, asking Him to be something that He already is? It is His revealed attitude.

And it's revealed in this way, to a degree, and many other ways as well, but we see it right here. I mean, these are the issues. If we're looking for someone to see God's grace, it's either they don't have a relationship with Him, and this is the opportunity that grace has offered them, or they don't have fellowship with him, and this is the opportunity of grace that God has revealed for the believer, right? Does that make sense?

Could it be that his grace is multiplied in us when we are in communion with him? It's like we become harmonic with reality. It's like taking a, I hate to do this, but it's a technical is really loud. And we reveal God's glory when we are in harmony with Him.

And other than that, John says we are in darkness. We are not revealing His glory. Isn't that... Yeah, I think that's... I mean, when we say revealing God's glory, what is it that we see in scripture that precedes that revelation of God's glory through us? It's His transforming and conforming of us, right? And what's preceded by that? are beholding it.

So that verse, 1 Corinthians 3.18, is explaining that reality of a believer, that as they behold the Lord with an unveiled face, through His word they are being transformed and conformed to the very image of Lord Jesus.

And His grace is always there. It's just amplified when we're in communion. Also, I mean, we talked about it too, that you're asking for grace to reign upon you, or you know, we're in the operating season of grace. Yeah, that's reality. And I go to Romans 5, when the law came so that the transgression would increase, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, so that as sin reigned in death, even so grace would reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. That's the operating system we're in. That's how He functions with us now. So we're asking for something that is His. That's right. You know, we're asking, you know, reign upon it while I'm already in His grace 100%. 100%. And, you know, it's like asking for blessings. We, Ephesians, we've been blessed with most of the blessings in in the heavenlies. And so these are the incongruent things that we're asking for that are already true. Does that make sense? Yeah. Yeah, he's already provided in this way. It's not a question of, will you? It's, I have. He has. Right? So question number nine.

What in 1 John 1.9-2 and then through 2.2 are the four vital elements that enter into divine forgiving and cleansing, which constitutes the restoration of a sinning saint. So let's read 1 John 1, or someone read 1 John 1, 9 through 2. Someone please.

If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar and His word is not in us. My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. If anyone sins, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, and He Himself is in propitiation for our sins, not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world. the judicial aspect of forgiveness,

70. So all of a sudden this distinction is now helping us understand scripture more clearly, I believe. So what's the condition on the human side that we first see in 1 John 1, 9? And in terms of the result of that, what do you see? What do you see God doing?

Forgiving. Forgiving. Some of you may not be able to see this. And what? Okay. So, if we sin, what do we have? Crisis advocacy. Crisis advocacy. What does that mean? He's there representing us. That's what it means to me. Before the Father. And what do you think he's representing? That he paid. He shed his blood to take care of it. Is that not right? No, I'm just asking a question. Why do you think Christ's advocacy is mentioned in the middle of a family verse with regards to how Christ is advocating for us before the Father? Oh, please don't send them to hell. No? I think one reason is that the accuser of brethren is there. We're being accused of our sinfulness which should result in condemnation.

And he, as an advocate, doesn't have to say anything because it's already done. And two is that I really think that he's maintaining that family relationship as a satisfaction for our sins. The father is never in a position where he would have to say, you know, I've got to do something further than what we've already done in order to restore according to the fellowship.

Thank you. Well said. I think that because there's an accusation, there needs to be an advocate, right? There's accusation, there needs to be an advocate, and that's who he is on our behalf. So, and then the final portion, the 2-2, what do we see about, what's the basis for divine forgiveness and cleansing? Propitiation. Propitiation. Big word. What does it mean? Satisfaction. Right. Why is satisfaction needed?

What does propitiation point back to in the law? Because it's renewed perfectly, or I shouldn't say renewed, it's fulfilled perfectly in Christ's death. and resurrection. It's the blood being brought by the priest to offer on the mercy seat, right? It was that picture, and God would say, okay, I'm satisfied. Temporarily. You have to do this again. But because of the blood of Christ, we see, judicially, God, the Father, being completely and totally satisfied with the offering of His Son. It's a one and done deal. He doesn't get unsatisfied with His Son. Ever.

Right? So, these four aspects, I think, help us understand a little bit more about Just about the cleansing and the confessing and the advocacy all based on the satisfaction of God through His Son. So final question. I'm going to wrap this one up. I think it's a quick one.

We've talked about it so much. Why doesn't the Father act in grace when forgiving the sins of the believer? You know this already. Because it's a judicial act. Thank you. Done. Mic drop. That's right. He acts in strict faithfulness to his covenant and promise of eternal keeping and in strict justice because of the shed blood. It's a judicial thing. And I sure am glad that the judicial side is not all that the Lord is, but I'm sure glad that he is judicial. Because without the righteousness, the righteous attribute of God, judging sin for what it is, then we would have a bigger problem and grace wouldn't be possible.

Let's close. Father, we do just thank you for the family relationship of the body, of which you are the head. And Lord, we thank you for the intimate relationship that we have through your Holy Spirit to behold you through your word and to be transformed and conformed to your very image. We thank you for the privilege of grace and confession and the conditional experience of that forgiveness and the cleansing all based on the very work you did on the cross for us. We thank you that we were there with you and that we have died to the sin nature and now in new and kind, new in reality, new in an entire environment of grace. We thank you for the wonderful, wonderful truths of what we know in this way. It's in your name we pray. Amen.