Let's turn together to the gospel of John. We left last week after it was clear that Jesus was teaching about the kingdom, and we sought to recapture a bit of His gospel presentation in which the kingdom played such an important role, and in doing so we are now brought to the point of the Sanhedrin's contemplation of the teaching and activity of Christ. And we see that among those in this gathering, this religious body, that they are not so unlike gatherings of religious bodies today, where politics and expedience regrettably often take the fore, where the politics of man and the concerns of man often trump the cause of the gospel, and where special interest often makes its way into gospel discussions, where doctrine is not the rule, but instead the comfort and the cause of man. Let's look together at John, chapter 11, and let's begin at verse 47. So the chief priest and the Pharisees gathered, the council and said, what are we to do? For this man performs many signs. If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation. But one of them, Caiaphas, who was high priest that year said to them, you know nothing at all. Nor do you understand that it is better for you that one man should die for the people, not that the whole nation should perish. He did not say this of his own accord, but being high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus would die for the nation, and not for the nation only. But also to gather into one the children of God who were scattered abroad. So from that day on, they may plans to put him to death. Lord bless the reading of his word and the hearing of his people. Jesus had raised Lazarus, showing his power over death, proving that he was the Messiah, who had come to deliver not only Israel, but the whole world, as according to the promise given to Abraham, the Father which these had before asserted that they belonged. And in fulfilling that promise, that the gospel of salvation, that God's covenant promises would be fulfilled not only to his people, but to all of the world which Jesus had clearly stated already in the discussions which as the shepherd he had had with them, where he said in chapter 10, verse 16, I have other sheep that are not of this fold, I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice so there will be one flock and one shepherd. Clearly Jesus, the Messiah, was the fulfillment of the covenant that had been promised since the beginning of the people of Israel. But yet they are not willing to give themselves to Jesus. Instead they were demonstrating their blindness and bad logic, and they showed that they had no honor, and instead they responded with threats. The cross of Jesus Christ is at the center of our own faith, it is at the center of our theology as we discuss the things of Scripture. Few doubt Jesus died in the Christian church today, few doubt Jesus died even among those who we call heathen, heathens. But the consideration of why he died, or for whom he died, often becomes cloudy and debated. Bottom line, as we had revealed last week, is the Sanhedrin was a part of what we call, according to Augustine's own terminology, the city of man. And the kingdom of God was a threat to them rather than a blessing. So they rejected it rather than welcoming it. And so they gathered on that day, they gathered in response to the raising of Lazarus and the people's response to the raising of Lazarus. And Caiaphas, after it was clear that the council couldn't reach a verdict. They couldn't reach a decision about what to do. Perhaps their own consciences would not allow them as overall a people who were supposed to represent religion to actually say what was on their mind, Caiaphas is the high priest, the one who was supposed to represent law and justice, who was the one who was supposed to represent God before the people, stood and sanctioned murder. He stood before them and he said, you have no idea what you're talking about. You don't know what you're talking about. Josephus, a great historian of that age who himself aspired to be a Pharisee, said very uncharitable things about the Sanhedrin and the Sadducees. He said that they could be very ruthless in their discussions with one another, that they were very coarse people who had very sharp tongues with one another. So it's no real surprise then that the high priest would stand and without a lot of political correctness or without a great concern over phrasing things in a general way or showing a great respect for the service of those around him would simply stand and say with a sharp embodying tone, you people don't know what you're talking about. You people have no idea what it is that you're dealing with here. He uttered such an ironic statement, doesn't it, with a double meaning, for it was he who had no idea what he was talking about. It would be him himself who would utter an evil phrase, let Jesus die, who in saying that also would be uttering the most blessed words to those who came after that Jesus would in fact die for their sins. He meant to murder Jesus, Jesus meant to atone for sin. What an irony it is that to be politically efficient, he decides that one man should die to preserve a nation. It's better for you that one man should die for the people, not that the whole nation should perish. What an expedient decision he came to. Expedience, when has expedience ever been a part of Christian life? Expedience in the Christian life. Have you thought that time was expedient when it came to Christian? For Christian service, you give it a certain amount of time because it is good to only allocate a certain amount of your life to serving Christ. It's expedient for you to be able to accommodate the world and to achieve those things in the world you want to achieve, keeping Christianity in your back pocket. There is nothing about Christianity that is expedient. In our study of 1 John, now two years ago, I guess, we read in chapter 2, verse 1, if you know him, you keep his commandments. Walk as he walked. What about these phrases lends itself to a theology of expedience concerning Christianity, bear his cross, undergo the refining and perfecting work of the Holy Spirit? Or how about Jesus in the great sermon on the Mount when he said, don't resist an evil person, but turn the other cheek? What is expedient about that? Love your enemies, bless those who curse you, not instructions of expedience. Do good to those who hate you, pray for those who spitefully persecute you. Expedience would be to say that we are the one thing that is unchangeable and unmovable and you can wrap your Christian faith around me, dress me in your Christian faith, and just like if I were to take my robe off and place it on someone else with a different physique, it would mold itself to your body and look differently and it would carry a different shape. We try to do the same thing with our Christian faith. We don't see the doctrines of scriptures as being unmovable. We don't even see a worship theology as something that is standard and immovable. Instead, we see that as adjusting to us because it's expedient. It's expedient for us not to be inconvenience. It's expedient for us not to have something we don't desire. It's expedient to take the scriptures and to mold them around what we desire to be the standard of truth. That's what they sought to do at the Sanhedrin. They observed the strongest testimony of Jesus's power over death itself, the raising of Lazarus. And instead of responding as they should, they said, what do we need to do to make that go away? Because if we let that continue, it will change us and we will not be moved. It's expedient that we destroy the man who raises the dead and makes the blind to see and who teaches the scriptures as no one else has before. It's expedient that he go away rather than we be moved or changed. When Caiaphas says it is expedient that he would die for the people. He's using sacrificial language. The death for the people was to use sacrificial language. Language that they were accustomed to because they were people who were involved in a cult of sacrifice. And I use cult not in a pejorative way. I use cult to mean that they had the sacrificial system within the temple as they brought the bulls and the rams and the goats in for sacrifice. It's high priest. He was being used by God to speak prophetically. Don't we have in Deuteronomy, I believe, three chapters of Balan being used by God while he was uttering words that he did not mean to intend to be prophecy to God. God was using him to utter perhaps some of the strongest and most promising prophecies that were given. Wasn't it pilot himself who said, behold, the king of the Jews? And he meant it in a pejorative way and yet used by God he was uttering truth. This is the king of the Jews, pilots saying it's expedient that this man died for the people. He sought to save the people from Rome. God meant to save the people from the curse of sin. Die for the Jewish nation. That word four, the word four, die for the people. Has the idea of a substitutionary atonement and the right word to use there is vicarious atonement. But you can say substitutionary, if you like, however vicarious will do more to help you understand the actual intent and the substitutionary character of the atonement. A substitution in atonement goes all the way back to Eden where they're at the very gates of Eden, an animal is slain because of the sin of man. Moses would give regulatory direction to the sacrifices of blood that the people were to observe. The people never believed that bulls and goats could actually take away their sins. But they did observe them as types and shadows of that which was to come. Scripture teaches that without shedding of blood there is no remission. And so the blood of bulls and goats symbolized that substitution of an innocent for the guilty. The substitution of one who is innocent for those who are guilty. And so when Jesus emerged on the scene as the incarnate Word of God, John said, behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. The guilt of the sinner is transferred to the innocent and just as satisfied in the death of the innocent. And then the Old Testament, this was taught to the people. As they would lay their hands on the animal, they would confess their sins. And then the priest would plunge his knife into that animal. And then the blood of that animal would be sprinkled on the altar and on the worshipper. And then the organs of the animal, the vital organs which represented the body, would be taken and would be cast into the fire to be completely consumed by fire representing divine justice. Romans 5, 6 and 8. And we were still without strength. In due time Christ died for the ungodly. God demonstrates His own love towards us. And that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us, the vicarious atonement. The death of the innocent in place of the guilty. 1 Peter 318, for Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust that He might bring us to God. My study vicarious atonement. As we go about our daily life, as we go about our daily living, do you have a real sense that your particular sins were placed upon Christ, that He died particularly for your sins, not simply in a broad generic sense, but that He died for sin, yours and mine. What is if we were to take and place our hands upon the horns of a bull or a goat and would confess our sins and then that animal be led away to slaughter as if our sins were being atone for by the death of an innocent on behalf of the guilty. So we have placed our hands on Christ or rather, He has placed His hands upon us. And He has taken up our sin and He has carried them himself to the cross and to die in body and then by the blood which represents life itself, we are saved. Have you been reconciled to God in Christ? Jesus is the Lamb of God who reconciles of people long estranged from God. Have you died in order that Christ will live through you? Through the confession of sin, real sin, not only Adam's sin, not only the sins of saying I know I can't keep the commandments perfectly, but those sins which we know we commit through our gossip, through our idleness, through our complacency, through our actual sin of desire or lusting or whatever it might be. Have you truly confessed real sin? Do you commit real sin then confess real sin that you might be forgiven really of your sin? He died for the nation, the Jewish nation, but not only for the Jewish nation, did He. He died for those who were scattered abroad. There is more than one sheepfold He has already taught that belongs to Jesus and He attends to gather all the nations to Himself. They will be made into one as the visible kingdom of God, the one holy Catholic and apostolic church as we say week after week together. All the sheep in one pen with one shepherd, we call this the Gentile mission. John is teaching us a scope and power of Christ's sacrifice. Say W. Pink, a great writer and preacher and theologian said, the great sacrifice was not offered to God at random. The redemption price which was paid at the cross was not offered without definite design. Christ didn't die simply to make salvation possible, but to make it certain. What does this mean? He didn't die just to make salvation possible, but to make it certain. Here we find probably one of the most unpopular teachings of the Scripture. I won't say of reformed theology and I'm not going to say of our church, I'm going to say of the Scriptures for this is taught in the Scriptures or else it wouldn't be taught by our church and held by reformed theology. What is the teaching of which I am referring? You will hear people omitted when they say catchphrases like I'm a forepoint Calvinist. What they mean is they're leaving out the doctrine of limited or particular atonement. They don't understand the virtue of a doctrine of limited or particular atonement. Lorraine Bettner, who one who has written not only exhaustively but very understandably about this, said, did Christ offer up himself a sacrifice for the whole human race, for every individual without distinction or exception, or did his death have special reference to the elect or the cold of God? In other words, was the sacrifice of Christ merely intended to make the salvation of all men possible or was it intended to render certain the salvation of those given him by the Father? If we want to answer this question, we have to phrase it perhaps something like this. Either all are saved by the cross meaning everybody because if we say he died for the world then either everyone in the world is saved or we're not actually saved by his death but instead by our profession of belief. Are we saved by the cross or are we saved by my profession? How are we to parse this out? How are we to understand this? And let's first of all acknowledge that the death of Jesus on the cross was sufficient to save everyone should that have been God's purpose and design. I think an illustration that helps me to understand this, if you were to go back in the days of drive-in theater which were just going out I guess as I was growing up and you could take one car and no matter how many people you packed in that car it was the same price. So if one person went to the drive-in movie it might be say $5 or if you could pack 10 or 12 into your Volkswagen Bug and you could take them to the drive-in movie it's still $5 because it was a by the car price. Salvation would be the same. We have to acknowledge that if one person in all of history is to be saved the bicarious atonement, the substitutionary death of Christ had to be the same. He would have bled and died on the cross the same for one if it was for the whole world. If all men and all ages and all of history were saved it would have taken no more than the cross and if one person were saved than only one person it would have taken no less than the cross. So my sin, if I sin less than you or I sin more than you, doesn't take more power from the cross or less power from the cross. Each of us the greatest, the worst Hitler or Ginghis Khan and Mother Teresa or Billy Graham. It takes the same power of the cross to save one as to save them all. Jesus dies the same death and suffers the same penalty of sitting under God's wrath for one as for all. The power of the sacrifice is not diminished by any smaller number coming into the gates of heaven by the narrow gate that leads to salvation by the remnant of that is saved. There is no diminished power in the cross if it doesn't save everyone and all of creation's time is not diminished at all because his death and his suffering were sufficient to save all mankind. The cross could have saved all mankind, but it's efficient shall we say to save those actually called by God. Isn't that what we've been exploring and Jesus is teaching up to this point? When he talks about being the shepherd and the sheep, doesn't he essentially say there are some who are not of my foe that he died for those not of his foe? If there is one person in hell that Jesus died for, then wasn't the cross in vain? If there is one person condemned to suffer and all eternity, then wasn't the cross lacking in power because it could not save the one who was condemned to hell? Is our problem with making the death of Christ for all then? Since not all are saved, sacrifice wouldn't actually save anyone, but only make it possible. Therefore, it's our belief. We cooperate with God. We activate the cross, if you will, by our belief. We become co-operators with God's grace. While we limit the power of his atonement and doing so, we increase our own spiritual power in making our claim of salvation apart of the recipe of salvation. But Jesus is described as being a ransom. Not one who simply makes salvation possible, but a ransom in Matthew 20, 28. The son of man came to give his life a ransom for many. When a ransom is paid, the person is ransomed and freed. That is justice, justice demands freedom for a ransom. Jesus came to save, not merely to make conditions right for salvation. In John 179, Jesus in His high priestly prayer, sprayed this, I am not praying for the world, but for those you have given to me. Again, I return to chapter 10, verse 16, and I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice, so there will be one flock and one shepherd. The mission of Christ was to call together and to gather together all those sheep that belong to His fold. Did Jesus die for the unsaved, did He die for those who will spend eternity in hell? Not one person in hell can claim a drop of Christ's blood, a He being applied to them. If He died for the damned, then He certainly died in vain. Christ died for sinners. We might call it the great exchange, His life for theirs. As a vicarious atonement, He died for their sins, and in their place, He died for particular sinners whom the Father had given to Him. It was substitutionary, not simply exhibitionary, 1 Thessalonians 5, 9 and 10. For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, so that whether we are awake or asleep, we might live with Him. John 1011, the good shepherd gives His life for His sheep, or Titus 214. He gave Himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness, and to purify for Himself a people for His own possession who were zealous for good works. If you belong to Christ, then you can take great security and comfort in knowing that the ransom has been paid in full. You are not left with an outstanding balance, or a note that you have to carry, or something you have to do to make sure that you've secured the promises of Christ. You can't ignore Christ, but you can resist, and you can reject. The people gathered there in the same edrant could not ignore Christ, but they could resist, and they did reject. If Christ has died for you, then your salvation is complete. It is complete. You're not in competition with those in hell to see just what force your testimony can carry. You're not saved by saying you believe, you're saved by the work of Christ on the cross. Believe and follow as an act of faith, but we're saved by Christ. When they said, it's better that one man should die for the people, not that the whole nation should perish. Their words remain unfulfilled because Rome would in due time come and destroy the nation. But what a beautiful prophecy He left us, this man who hated Christ, because it was indeed good, and according to God's will, that Jesus would die rather than the people, but we have been saved from death. We will transition through physical death into the eternal, but we have been saved from the pains of death, and the grave has lost its hold. The real victory was indeed one, though Caiaphas would never know because Rome would crush Him and His people and His nation just as He did not think would happen. Try to preserve the world of the flesh and it will be crushed. Live for Christ and those things which are eternal and the cross will set you free.