Who Takes Away the Sin of the World?

Tom Shrader teaches from John 1:29 and Isaiah 53 that Jesus is the Lamb of God who came specifically to bear and remove the sin that separates humanity from God. Drawing on John the Baptist's testimony, Isaiah's portrait of the suffering servant, and theologians like J.C. Ryle and John Stott, Shrader argues that sin is humanity's deepest and most irreversible problem—one no amount of education, politics, or self-reliance can solve. The message calls listeners to recognize that Christ's sinless life and substitutionary death are God's provision for the guilt, shame, and wrath that human sin deserves.

“God made him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf so that we might become the righteousness of God in Christ.”

— Tom Shrader

Series: Who is this?

Recorded: 2012 at East Valley Bible Church

Duration: 51 min

Themes: sin, forgiveness, salvation, guilt, shame, sacrifice, redemption, hope, struggling with guilt, feeling unworthy, new believer, seekers questioning faith, someone carrying shame, young adult, person doubting god's forgiveness, struggling with past mistakes

Scripture: John 1:6-8, John 1:11, John 1:19, John 1:29, John 1:34, John 1:38, John 1:41, John 1:43, John 1:45, John 1:49, John 1:51, John 3:16, John 3:19-20, John 8:46, John 8:52, John 8:56, John 10:58, Matthew 3:1-4, Matthew 8:20, Matthew 11:11, Romans 3:10-12, Isaiah 40, Isaiah 53, Malachi 3:1, Malachi 4:5, 2 Corinthians 5:21, 1 John 4:10, 1 Peter 2:24, Psalm 23, Genesis 1-3

Theological Themes: substitutionary atonement, lamb of god, propitiation, suffering servant, imputation, original sin, biblical atonement, wrath of god

Full Transcript

Series Introduction

Turn to the Gospel of John, chapter one, verse 19. If you don't have a Bible, raise your hand nice and high. If you get a Bible from us, it's page 576.

This series is a little different, perhaps, than some of the book series we do. Different in this sense: there is a linear thought here. One lesson builds on the next, builds on the next, builds on the next. We titled it "Who Is This?" We said that from the life of Christ, recorded in all four Gospels, Jesus is confronted by people — disciples, the general population, Pontius Pilate, a whole host of people — asking, "Who is this? Who are you?" So we said we are going to ask that question in a series of questions.

Let me remind you of those questions. We technically began the series on Good Friday with the question, "Who is this that died on the cross?" Then the progression: Easter morning, "Who is this who rose from the dead?" "Who is this who exposes darkness?" "Who is this who knew no sin?" Today: "Who is this who takes away the sin of the world?" And next week, the final session in the series: "Who is this — King, Savior, God?" The answer, by the way, if you are struggling, is Jesus — to all of these.

That was the progression. The question is asked of Christ, and Jesus seems to be fairly black and white in saying, "I want to take away from you the option of 'I don't know.'" He says you are either for Him or against Him. He gives you this information, and then you either respond or you do not. The stakes are large, and the answer is clear.

The Resurrection as Starting Point

We started on Easter, and we said this is like a TV show or movie where the closing scene chronologically is actually the opening scene, and then we come back to it. So the resurrection. A great deal of time was spent on the historical fact of the resurrection. We are not going to go back and repeat all of that, but let me suggest it is really easy to find — that is one of the great things about the internet. You can go and search resurrection facts and have a ton of information at your fingertips very quickly.

I was reading something this week from a very committed skeptic who was saying that people who believe in Christ, or in religion in general, are too lazy to look at facts and too lazy to do the hard work and are not very reflective. I thought, can you imagine sitting down with Jonathan Edwards — whom the Encyclopedia Britannica calls the greatest mind America ever produced — and telling him he is too lazy to look at facts and too lazy to think? That was just some person regurgitating what a university professor told him. I digress. But I say, look at the facts of the resurrection. If you have never done it, I think you might be surprised.

What we concluded in the first week is this: Jesus rose from the dead. And we said, let's be practical. If that is true, then I may want to pay special attention to what He said about Himself, about us, about me, and about how all of this comes together.

Who Is This Who Exposes the Darkness?

Two weeks ago the topic was, "Who is this that exposes the darkness?" In John's Gospel, if you flip back to John chapter three, verse 19 — right after Jesus says, "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life" — Jesus said this: "This is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the light, for their deeds were evil. For everyone who does evil hates the light and does not come to the light, for fear his deeds will be exposed."

Paul tells us in Romans chapter three, verses 10 through 12, that no one does good. Now, that offends our common sense, because we look around and say, "My neighbor cut my grass while I was gone — didn't even ask him to. A storm came in last August when we weren't here, and he came and swept the pool." That seems clearly good. What Paul is saying is that in the eyes of God, no one does good, because God is not looking at the action but at the heart of the actor.

Our hearts are evil — deceptively so — and even in our good actions, if we lift the curtain a little and look inside, even in our good actions the reason we do them is often for our own benefit. Watch the local news cover an event like the Special Olympics, and they will talk to the people who volunteer there. Someone will ask, "Why do you do this?" And almost always the answer is, "It makes me feel so good." So on the surface you are doing a good thing, but you are not doing it for a good reason — you are doing it for yourself.

What happens is that Jesus comes along and exposes that dark side. Once the light comes into the world, the standard shifts from our own sense of good and evil into God's standard. And once I see God as He really is, I go, "I am in real trouble."

Who Is This Who Knew No Sin?

Last week, Tim taught and answered the question, "Who is this who knew no sin?" The answer, of course, is Jesus. Tim remained in John chapter eight and shared four important points.

First, Jesus claimed to be sinless — John chapter eight, verse 46. Second, in chapter eight, verse 52, He said He was the only way to God. Third, in chapter eight, verse 56, Jesus is presented as the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy. There are hundreds of Old Testament prophecies concerning the Messiah who would come, and Jesus fulfills every one of them to the letter — including where He would be born and all the things He Himself would do.

God Didn't Have to Save Us

In John chapter 10, verse 58, Jesus indeed asserts that He is God. What I want to do, over this week and next week, is pull together this whole series and have you see that our sin has separated us from God, and that God's plan and provision is for Jesus to come to the earth and to die in our place. We embrace that, and now we have life.

When you teach, there are moments that are really frustrating — not frustrating angry moments, but frustrating helpless moments. Good Friday was one of them. There are times when you're teaching and you say something you don't really think is much, but the emails light up and everybody responds that it was really incredible. Then there are times when you think you have something really, really special — because it was really special to you — and you share it, and there's no reaction at all.

There was a thought on Good Friday that I had which I thought was really great, but there was not the reaction it felt like there should have been. So we'll go down this path again at the appropriate time. Here's the point I'm making, one I hadn't really thought much about in this context until Good Friday this year.

Once you're around this material for a while and begin to study, you realize that in Genesis chapters one and two, God creates; in Genesis three, man falls; and literally within eight verses, God is already promising a redeemer of salvation. Maybe it's human nature to think that somehow God didn't have any choice in that matter. We get that it's His plan — we can read from beginning to end and see creation, the fall, redemption, restoration — and we can't read through without seeing that God is in control.

But here is the point I made on Good Friday: that is God's plan, but He didn't have to have that plan. God could have done nothing. God could have been totally justified in saying, "You sin, you live with it — sin is death, have at it." Or He could have come and saved everyone universally. But He didn't do either of those things. God sent Jesus, and if God was going to save us, there was only one way to do it.

Why God Had to Become Flesh

He had to become flesh, because a sacrifice is required, and it has to be a perfect sacrifice, and no human born of the flesh could pay that perfect sacrifice. That is why God had to come to this earth — not beamed down or arriving in some other manner, but born of a virgin. Jesus therefore did not have our sin nature, and in fact lived a perfect life so that His sacrifice was acceptable to God. But God didn't have to do that — and yet He did.

The Holiness of God and the Necessity of the Cross

John Stott writes this: "If we bring God down to our level, raise ourselves to His, then of course we see no need of a radical salvation, let alone of a radical atonement to secure it. When, on the other hand, we have glimpsed the blinding glory of the holiness of God and have been so convicted of our sin by the Holy Spirit that we tremble before God and acknowledge that we are, namely, hell-deserving sinners, then and only then the necessity of the cross appears so obvious that we are astonished we have never seen it before."

That is why we have to come back to this again and again. We are just never going to get very far from the condition of man or from the holiness of God. Take what Tozer says and put it together with what Stott says. Tozer says our problem with our theology is that it never ascends high enough or descends low enough. Stott echoes that: we bring God down to our level or we bring ourselves up to His. We come back again and again because we need this biblical view of ourselves.

There is a sense in which you should look at what we have been teaching intensely for the last twenty weeks and recognize that, in reality, we have been teaching it for twenty years. It is just who we are, because that is what the Bible says we are. So we are asking these questions: Who exposes sin? Jesus does. Who knew no sin? Jesus. Who takes away the sin of the world?

Introducing John the Baptist

John chapter one, verse 19. Here we will be introduced to two Johns. One is John the gospel writer, who will record this incident for us. The chief character in this story is John the Baptizer, or John the Baptist.

Chapter one, verse 19: "This is the testimony of John" — we are talking about John the Baptist — "when the Jews sent to him priests and Levites from Jerusalem and they said, 'Who are you?'" As early as verse six of this book, we have already met him: "There came a man sent from God, his name was John. He came as a witness to testify." John the gospel writer loved that phrase — he uses "testify" seventy-five times or more in his writings.

John the Baptist: A Witness to the Light

In his writings, John speaks repeatedly of testifying. He establishes his first witness clearly: John the Baptist came as a witness to testify about the light, so that all might believe through him. As verse eight states, he is not the light, but he came to testify about the light. That is what we will see fleshed out.

The priests and Levites come not under their own initiative, but sent by the Jews to encounter John the Baptist. He is an odd creature, really, as we look at him humanly. Matthew chapter three, verse one records: "Now in those days John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness saying, 'Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.'" Matthew adds that this fulfills Isaiah the prophet, quoting from Isaiah chapter 40: "He is the voice of one crying in the wilderness, make way the way of the Lord, make His path straight."

Matthew chapter three, verse four gives us a brief biographical sketch of John: "Now John himself had a garment of camel's hair and a leather belt around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey." He lived out in the desert. He was an odd man by any human measure.

Yet Jesus had a remarkable assessment of him. Matthew chapter eleven, verse eleven records Jesus saying: "Truly I say to you, among those born of women, there is not one arisen any greater than John the Baptist." That is an extraordinary statement.

The Greatest Among Those Born of Women

Consider what that claim means. In the secular world alone you have Alexander the Great, Augustus Caesar, Cicero, Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, and Hammurabi the lawgiver — people who lived and wrote and thought in ways that still affect our lives today. Then come into the biblical world and you meet Abraham, Moses, David, Joseph, Solomon, Jeremiah, and Isaiah. And here is what Jesus says: take all those men, and a whole host of others never mentioned, and not one of them is greater than John.

This is a major figure who comes into the world with essentially one assignment. His assignment is to proclaim the truth and to make the path straight.

The Delegation from Jerusalem

Verse nineteen tells us that the Jews — and here that term likely refers to the Jewish religious authorities — send priests and Levites to question John. The priests were the theological authorities of the day. They presided over the religious ceremonies and were considered the human intermediaries between God and man. The Levites assisted the priests and functioned essentially as temple police, serving as the security detail.

They come under the instruction of the Jewish leaders because John is stirring things up. He is an odd figure, but crowds are gathering and the leaders want answers. So they go and ask him directly: "Who are you?"

John tells them first what he is not. He is not the Christ. Apparently the idea of the Messiah either being present or about to appear is very much on people's minds — John assumes it, and he assumes it is on their minds as well.

So they press further. Are you Elijah? Based on prophecies in Malachi 3:1 and Malachi 4:5, there was an expectation that Elijah himself would return in bodily form before the Messiah came to establish the earthly kingdom. In fact, it is said that to this day at some Jewish Seder gatherings, an empty chair is left in case Elijah shows up that night. They are still waiting for him. John says no, he is not Elijah. Are you the Prophet? No.

"I Am a Voice"

So they press him in verse twenty-two: "Who are you, so that we may give an answer to those who sent us? What do you say about yourself?" They are there on assignment. They cannot return and report only what John is not — they need to know what he is.

John answers by quoting Isaiah: "I am a voice of one crying in the wilderness, make straight the way of the Lord." In that day and age, when a king was traveling to a city, a group of men would be sent ahead to clear the road. If there were obstacles, they would remove them. If there were bumps, they would smooth them out. If the path was crooked, they would straighten it. That is the image John reaches for to describe his role — he is the one sent ahead to prepare the way.

The Lamb of God

The next day, after the discussion between the priests, the Levites, and John, John sees Jesus. Here is what he says: "Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world."

This title is exclusive to John's writings among the gospel writers when speaking about Jesus in this way. In fact, it is remarkable that in chapter 1 alone, John speaks of Jesus by many titles: Rabbi in verse 38, Messiah in verse 41, Son of God in verse 34, King of Israel in verse 49, Son of Man in verse 51, and in verse 45, the one whom the prophets wrote about — Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph. "The Lamb of God" is one of those titles.

So here is what we must not miss. There is a whole gathering of people around, and John sees Jesus and says, "There it is." That is what "Behold" means — look at that, the Lamb of God.

What the Title "Lamb" Meant to the Jews

The title of Lamb would have said something very clear to these Jews. It was a picture of sacrifice — that God and man were separated because of sin and could never be reconciled without a blood sacrifice. There is no forgiveness of sin without the shedding of blood.

This sacrifice took place historically on a daily basis at the temple, and most clearly at Passover. Just before Jesus died, at that Passover, the population of Jerusalem was said to swell to as many as three million people, and they would kill as many as 250,000 lambs. But everyone knew that was not the real thing. It was a symbol pointing to something greater.

And so here is what John says: there it is — not a lamb, but the Lamb of God. Not one who is merely a picture of what might happen. He came to take away the sin of the world.

That reality actually prompted an interesting moment in our own life. We used to celebrate a Seder dinner every year, and we decided to make it as authentic as possible in terms of food preparation. One of the women came to me and said they were having a real problem with the lamb — they could not get it cooked right. I told her to call one of the local synagogues and ask how they cook it. She came back three or four days later, having spoken with three synagogues, and they all said the same thing: we do not use lamb anymore, we use chicken. I said somehow "Behold, the Chicken of God who takes away the sin of the world" seems to lose a little of the imagery. So I told her to just make really bad lamb, and that is what we did.

He Came to Take Away Sin

John says here is the Lamb of God, and He is on assignment. His assignment, as stated in verse 29, is to take away the sin of the world. So the question we are asking is: who is it that takes away the sin of the world? It is the Lamb of God. And who is the Lamb of God? It is Jesus.

Let me read at length from J.C. Ryle, who writes this: "Christ is a Savior. He did not come to earth to be a conqueror, a philosopher, or merely a teacher of morality." It is interesting that those latter roles are probably the prominent ones most people assign to Him — a philosopher or a teacher. And yes, He was a teacher; He shared truth with us. Yes, He lived a life we are to model. But that is not why He came to earth. He did not come as a conquering King. He came as a servant King, and He came to save His people from their sin.

Ryle continues: "He came to save sinners. He came to do that which man could never do for himself, to do that which money and learning could never obtain, to do that which is essential to man's real happiness. He came to take away sin."

Ryle goes on: "Christ is a complete Savior. He takes away sin. He does not merely make vague proclamations of pardon and mercy and forgiveness. He took our sin upon Himself and carried them away. He allowed them to be laid upon Himself and He bore them in His body on a tree." That is 1 Peter 2:24. The sin of everyone who believes on Jesus is made as though they had never sinned at all before God — the Lamb of God has taken them away.

Complete and Daily Forgiveness

He did not die for Jews only, but for Jews and Gentiles. He did not suffer for a few persons only. He takes away sin. And He does it daily. He died once and for all, but that forgiveness is available to us every day.

Jesus came to be the King, the Savior of all who would come to Him. Behold the Lamb of God — not our lamb, not a lamb that is merely a symbol, but the Lamb who was slaughtered once, and whose purpose and action was to take away the shame, the guilt, the wrath, and the punishment that were due to us.

So the question of the day is: who is it that takes away the sin of the world? The answer is Jesus.

Anchoring in the Old Testament

When we sat down in the preaching collective to prepare for this, there were two passages that Luke and Frank decided to use to anchor this lesson. One was the passage we looked at — John chapter 1, verse 29. The other is in the Old Testament.

The Messiah Isaiah Saw Coming

Turn to page 396 in the Bible we gave you. It's Isaiah 53. The heading in my Bible — and I'm sure it's different in others — is "The Suffering Servant." It's clear at this point, from Isaiah 52 and 53, that somebody is coming. In Isaiah 53 we understand it's the Messiah. One author says the Messiah steps out into full, glorious view.

So we see the Messiah now. Again, it's a Messiah different than the one the Jews expected. It's not the conquering Messiah. He's not bringing economic prosperity or political control. He's giving us something we need far deeper than that — to take away our sin.

Our Deepest Problem Is Not Political or Economic

That's our ultimate problem. My ultimate problem is sin. My ultimate problem is not that the government doesn't respond to me.

I have a pet peeve you can't even imagine. I don't understand why we need mail delivery every day. You get nothing in the mail but bills, birthday cards, and advertisements. If you went to get the mail every other day — Monday, Wednesday, Friday or Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday — you could take what is a money pit, an $11 billion bailout, and turn it into a profit center. It would mean some jobs lost, I understand that, but we'd find other jobs because we'd grow the economy.

The other day I said to Sandy that I should go get my mail, because I hadn't picked it up in a while. I went over, and there was a sheet of paper in there saying I hadn't picked up my mail in a while and needed to come to the post office to get it — but they wouldn't give it to me until I gave 24-hour advance notice, so I should call a number. So I called the number. It rang and rang. I put it on speakerphone and did my work. That was Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. On Thursday I went down and said I hadn't received my mail and showed them the form, and they said, "Well, we don't use that number anymore." I didn't make this up. "We don't use that form anymore." I said, "There's a reason you need $11 billion to bail you out." So I got my mail in a big bucket and literally threw most of it away.

Does that bother me? It drives me nuts. But my biggest problem isn't government. My biggest problem is not wishing I had more stuff. My biggest problem is sin, and the only solution is Jesus. So when Jesus comes, isn't it interesting that He doesn't lead a political revolution, or an economic revolution, or an educational revolution? Those aren't the problems. Those are symptoms of the problem. The problem is sin. And He came as the Messiah — but it would be a very different type of Messiah.

A Man of Sorrows

Chapter 53, verse 3 says He was despised, forsaken, a man of sorrows. I don't know if you've ever thought about this, but there is not one incident recorded in Scripture of Jesus smiling or laughing. Now, I'm sure He did. I'm sure He didn't walk around with a sour, the-weight-of-the-world-is-upon-me disposition. Here's how I know that, very simply: children were attracted to Him, and if He were like that, they wouldn't have been. But the characteristic of Jesus' life is not laughter. It is joy, but it's a joy incorporated into sorrow.

He says in verse 3 that He was despised, and we did not esteem Him. John Piper observes this: "We must remember that all through His boyhood, and even into His manhood, He was pursued by nasty cracks about His birth, inferring that He was an illegitimate son born to a faithless maiden who had broken her vow of betrothal. His brothers misunderstood Him and did not believe Him. They were embarrassed at some of the things He said and did, and it wasn't until after the resurrection that they believed in Him."

He was called a drunkard and a glutton, and was said to be possessed by the devil. He was called a Samaritan, which is a disparaging term. He had no home to go to. He said of Himself, "The foxes have holes, the birds have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head" — Matthew 8:20. Sometimes His disciples left Him alone to go about their own business, and He had to go out to the Garden of Gethsemane and sleep alone beneath the olive trees.

He became, at one point, public enemy number one. In the weeks before the crucifixion, the Pharisees offered a reward to anyone who would turn Him in. Surely He was rejected by men. In the words of the Apostle John, "He came to His own, but His own people did not receive Him" — John 1:11.

He was a sorrowful man, but the sorrow was born of His clear understanding of the cause of the human condition and the problem. Jesus is there as Lazarus lies dead. Jesus knows He is going to raise him from the dead — and yet Jesus wept. He sees the effect of sin all around Him. There is joy; He even speaks of the joy set before Him in reference to the cross. There is joy, there is an anticipation of how God will provide for our deepest need. But there is a heaviness here.

The Weight of Our Sin Placed on Him

That last part of chapter 53 says the Lord caused the iniquity of us all to fall on Him. The paraphrase from The Message reads: "God piled all our sins, everything we've done wrong, on Him — on Him."

Look at the words used to describe what is done to this Messiah throughout Isaiah 53. Verse 4: "Surely our griefs He Himself bore." Verse 4: "Our sorrows He carried." Verse 5: "He was pierced through for our transgressions." Verse 5: "He was crushed for our iniquities." Verse 5: "The chastening of our well-being fell upon Him." Verse 5: "By His scourging we are healed." Verse 6: "The Lord laid on Him the iniquity of us all." Verse 8: "He was stricken for the transgressions of my people." Verse 11: "He will bear our iniquities."

The Weight of Sin Falling on Him

"He bore the sin of many." Listen to those words, those verbs — struck, smitten, afflicted, pierced, scourged. These are all the things that Jesus absorbed, and it is very clear: our iniquity, our transgressions fell on Him. He was there on our behalf. He took our place. Verse six says, "All of us like sheep have gone astray, each turning to his own way."

Let me read again from Eugene Peterson's paraphrase, The Message, Isaiah 53:6: "We're all like sheep who've wandered off and gotten lost. We've all done our own thing, gone our own way." He said you're a sheep, not a goat. Remember when we studied Psalm 23? God is very deliberate here in the image. Sheep are by and large stupid, dumb, dirty, fragile, defenseless animals — not bright at all. And he said we're like sheep in the sense that we've all gone astray; they just tend to wander off. Here's what you've done, according to Peterson's paraphrase: you've done your own thing, each one. Verse six — each one has turned to his own way.

My Way: The Anthem of Self-Reliance

When I was not a believer, one of the artists I loved to listen to — and still do, he's still on my satellite radio — was Frank Sinatra. One of the songs that became most identified with Sinatra was "My Way." So I had this picture, as someone not yet following Christ, that at my funeral there would be the appropriate and abundant shedding of tears, and then there would be all these great things said about me. Since I had neither done great things nor had anyone said great things to me, I assumed they were saving it up for that moment. And then when the funeral was over, everyone would rise, and they would wheel me out — I preferred sitting in a chair, but perhaps in a casket — and right at that moment, they would put on Sinatra singing "My Way." That was going to be my last little shot.

I cannot tell you, as I've shared that over the years, how many men and women have said to me, "I've thought that very same thing." Let me read you the song:

*And now the end is near, and so I face the final curtain. My friends, I'll say it clear, I'll state my case, of which I'm certain. I've lived a life that's full, I've traveled each and every highway, and more, much more than this, I did it my way.*

*Regrets, I've had a few, but then again, too few to mention. I did what I had to do, and I saw it through without exemption.*

Listen to the singular personal pronoun: *I planned each charted course, each careful step along the byway, and more, much more than this, I did it my way.*

*There were times, I'm sure you knew, when I bit off more than I could chew, but through it all, when there was doubt, I ate it up and I spit it out. I faced it all, I stood tall, and I did it my way.*

You can hear the defiance building. *I've loved, I've laughed and cried, I've had my fill, my share of losing, and now, as tears subside, I find it all so amusing — to think I did all that, and may I say, not in a shy way. Oh no, oh no, not me — I did it my way.*

And then it rises to this crescendo of defiance: *For what is a man, what has he got, if not himself, that he has got — to say the things he truly feels, not the words of one who kneels. The record shows I took the blows, and I did it my way.*

The Same Story, Dressed Up in Intellectual Language

Now, the majority of people in the four or six o'clock service may have no idea who Frank Sinatra is. But you certainly get that sentiment, don't you? It is that self-reliance. Here is a story from USA Today — I check it on my iPad every day — and it ran today. The headline is: "Secularists Counter Prayer Day with National Day of Reason." As millions of Americans bowed their heads for the annual National Day of Prayer, atheists, humanists, and other non-theists marked the day their own way. The National Day of Reason is, in short, that expression of the non-theist community, holding May 3rd as part protest, part celebration, and totally godless.

One of the men leading this effort, a director of communications for a center of inquiry, is quoted saying: "In times of great conflict and worry, people want to look to a higher power, and I'm sympathetic to that. But our day puts the focus back on people and what they can do for themselves. We're trying to make a better world on our own by emphasizing good works and good deeds." In fact, one group in Putnam, Connecticut held a science and reason book exchange — turn in your Bible and receive a free copy of Darwin's *Origin of Species*.

Here is what this is: it is "My Way," dressed up in intellectual language. It is the defiant call. I hear it all the time. Every presidential election cycle, someone says, "He's an intelligent guy." We've had all the intelligent guys, and they haven't gotten us there. Kennedy brought in the best and the brightest, and that gave us Vietnam. John Kennedy himself said, "We got ourselves into it, we'll get ourselves out of it." How has that worked out?

The Problem Education and Economics Cannot Solve

Here is the problem. We understand it as followers of Christ: we got ourselves into this, and our biggest problem is that we cannot get ourselves out of it. Our problem is not education. I am all for education, but consider that in Nazi Germany, men would smoke fine cigars, drink the best brandy, and listen to Beethoven as they marched Jewish men and women in to be incinerated. They were plenty smart and sophisticated. It is not economics either, though I am for that.

My biggest problem is sin. One author describes sin as a disease, in the sense that it distorts who we really are — just as a cancer or a disease invades a person and changes everything about them.

Sin's Devastation and Our Helplessness

Sin distorts what you were meant to be. It takes your faculties and throws them off equilibrium, saps your energy, numbs you, and causes great pain. Sin produces this pollution. The problem with man is that our sin has got us here.

The arrogance of saying "my way," the arrogance of a national day of reason, the arrogance of saying we got ourselves into it and we'll get ourselves out of it — when you are in real trouble, you want to hire power. I would suggest it is those people who are in real trouble who all of a sudden see things as they really are, understand their circumstances, and realize there is nothing they can do.

When Susan was diagnosed seven years ago, they told us her condition was not curable, but treatable. We went through all the processes of treating it, and I cannot tell you how many conversations I had, only to think as people walked away: do you understand that you are not curable? We can treat it, we can postpone what is going to happen, but we cannot cure it.

This sin disease that we have is not curable, and it is not even treatable by us. There is nothing we can do. We cannot make it kind of right. Destruction is inevitable.

Tying the Last Two Weeks Together

Let me tie these last two weeks together. Man is in darkness — he sins. Sin has invaded everyone, and the result is that we are children of wrath. We hate God. We dress it up, but we hate God. We make God in our own image — we make Him less, we make ourselves more, and everything in between.

Man is in darkness, and it is Jesus who came into this life sinless. He was sinless so that He would be the perfect Lamb. 2 Corinthians 5, verse 21 — again, one of those verses we have to return to again and again: "God made him, that's Jesus, who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf so that we might become the righteousness of God in Christ."

So who was it that was sinless? It was Jesus. Why? So that He would be the perfect sacrifice, so that He could go to the cross, and in dying on the cross, He could pay the price for your sin.

The Love of God and the Wrath of God

1 John, chapter 4, verse 10 — written by the same John as the Gospel — says: "In this is love, not that we love God." He tells us in other places that the only reason we love God at all is because He first loved us. We come into the world alienated from God, and we are determined not to change that. We will construct our own version of a god, but we hate the God of the Bible. We despise Him. We want nothing to do with Him.

We may warm up to spiritual things, or to a god we have designed ourselves, but not that one. And yet, ultimately, there are a whole number of people who fall in love with Him. In this chapel room, in the conference center 45 minutes ago, you all took communion. It was a moment when you proclaimed that Jesus was Lord and Savior and that He died in your place. But that is because God did this work in your life.

So John says in 1 John 4, verse 10: "In this is love, not that we love God, but that he loved us." How do we know? He sent His Son to be — here is the word — the propitiation for our sin. That word means to satisfy the wrath of God.

When people want to talk about God, they want to talk about love, love, love. And I love that God is a God of love. But you have edited Him if you do not also speak of Him as a God of wrath. Because He loves righteousness and holiness, He hates sin. The author of Proverbs writes of six — yes, seven — things that God hates. So propitiation means to satisfy the wrath of someone; in this case, the wrath of God.

If you want to talk about real love, it is this: God sent Jesus to die on the cross, and in doing so He propitiated — satisfied — God's wrath against your sin. That is what all those terms we examined in Isaiah 53 point to.

Who Killed Jesus?

Isaiah 53, verse 10: "The Lord was pleased to crush him, pierce him." And always in that context, it is not some arbitrary act. It is not simply to make Jesus suffer. There is always a purpose — to crush Him, to scourge Him, to afflict Him for our sin.

When we were meeting with the preaching collective, I raised a verse in Isaiah 53 that troubled me — the last part of verse 53: "By his scourging we are healed." Some translations render it, "By his stripes you were healed." I was making the point that I really dislike how the health, wealth, and prosperity teachers use this verse — claiming He died for your cancer, and so on, and that there is physical healing in the atonement.

No sooner had I said this than one of the young men there, Tyler Johnson, said, "I disagree. Healing is in the atonement." He went on to say that the ultimate healing is going to take place after death. And I said, "You know, that is the reason I never liked you from the very beginning." But there is truth in what he said.

Haley sent me a note the other day telling me that Braden was getting ready to write to thank me for going to Boston, and on the back he had written, "Nana, I wish you were here. I miss you so much." Yale recently sent a note to Nana saying, "I know you can't come back, but can you just come back for my birthday?" And Haley sent me a note saying that after however many months, it is a comfort to know that she has no pain. That is the ultimate healing. Tyler is right — in that ultimate sense.

The True Purpose of the Atonement

But that is not the same as saying He died so that you would have physical life and physical healing. He died so that you would have spiritual life and spiritual healing. That does not mean He is going to take away your cancer. Here is how I know: we all die.

He died to pay the price for your sin. And now the issue is: how do you respond to that? Some of you — and we are going to talk about this next week — some of you cannot wait.