Let's turn together to the book of John chapter 10. As we continue to explore this allegory of shepherd and his sheep, we find that Jesus has been moving us through several phases in the allegory and several different messages that He wanted us to learn from this. As He began, He simply stated, I am the shepherd and I call my sheep. And here we saw as the blind man was rejected by the religious authorities, Jesus went to Him because He belonged to Christ. And we found the faithfulness of the shepherd and the love of the shepherd and the fidelity of the shepherd as He comes to his sheep and never abandons them. Jesus went on to say that not only is He the shepherd, but He is also the gate that there is no way into the flock that belongs to the Lord. There is no way into the sheepfold except by Christ. None other. He's thy way and the truth and the life and no one comes to the Father except by Him. There is no other way of salvation. There are not many paths that all ascend to one point leading to salvation. No other name may man call upon to be saved. Jesus is the gate. There is no other way to scale the wall, to climb the fence, to gain entry into the flock of God. Those who are in the sheepfold of Christ have entered by Christ while He is also their shepherd. And so we continue this morning, beginning at verse 11, if you'll take your finger and trace down to verse 11, He continues to assert that He is the shepherd qualifying it with the word good, but then we will find here I believe the meat and the marrow that our age in particular needs to hear. I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. He who is a hired hand and not a shepherd who does not own the sheep sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees, and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. Beef leaves because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep. I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me. Just as the Father knows me and I know the Father and I lay down my life for the sheep. This ends the reading of God's Word. May the Lord bless his Word and the hearing of his people. I am the good shepherd. The first qualification we want to make is for the Word good and we won't go into all of the original language backgrounds for there are several different words that we want to emphasize. Let me simply provide you with some clarification. That word good, we know, comes in our mind, there is a moral good that is implied and certainly the balance of the passage has been teaching that Jesus is morally superior to those religious authorities that had cast out a man who did nothing but tell them the truth. He was morally superior to those who would seek to take the life of an innocent man, so we know that the good shepherd is morally superior to those who would feign to be shepherds in their time. But this word translated more literally signifies also the word excellent. He is the more excellent shepherd, the greater shepherd, so that is also what is taught by the word good. There are other shepherds who are hirelings. They are not the wolves, they are indeed under shepherds if you will, they are hirelings they are there because the one who owns the flock has placed them in a position to watch over the flock. And the time of Jesus' ministry, we might presume that these were to have been the priests. Remember we had Pharisees and Sadducees who were cast or religious orders that had been more or less carved out of the population. We might call them self-made religious authorities but the people certainly recognize them as teachers and as those who had religious power. But the priests were the ones established in the Old Testament by God to minister on behalf of the people. It was the priest who went into the holy place. It was the priest who took the sacrifices and ministered between the people and God. That was these priests who were the hirelings who were to watch over the people but they had allowed for these Pharisees and these Sadducees to come in. They had allowed for them to take the people and to move them away. They had retreated from their position as mediator between God and man and allowed Pharisees and Sadducees to mistyach and misrepresent God before the people. Jesus is here saying, I am the more excellent, I am the good shepherd. I do not do as the hirelings, I am the good shepherd using and continuing this analogy. Jesus is calling up in the minds of the people now the idea of a shepherd again. He's gone from shepherd to gate and back to shepherd. Shepherds, we remember, were to care for the sheep. They were to feed the sheep. They were to protect the sheep. This last concept, the idea of protection that Jesus is now beginning to focus on. Protection is what he's going to describe. Shepherds were always only alert for whatever might come to seize one of the sheep, a wolf or a bear. Shepherds had weapons that they would use instruments to protect the sheep. It might be a spear or it might be a sling. You remember David from the Old Testament, how he was an expert with a sling and he fell to the lieath with a sling. It might have been that he had a sling or he might have had a spear, but as the predator would approach, he would seek from a distance to kill the predator. He might take his sling and using his expert shot, he might try to strike and scare off the predator. Never would he willingly just simply sacrifice one of the sheep so he could then herd the rest off. He wanted to save the whole flock. But the idea here was not that the shepherd himself would die for the flock. Because a bear would just assume kill the shepherd and then the entire flock is at risk and he would then move on to kill the flock. The shepherd's death did nothing really to save the flock, did it? If you think in practical terms and in human terms, please don't confuse here. Jesus' analogy of shepherd, I'm going to move on and show how the death of the true shepherd does indeed save the flock. But in the analogy, in the people's minds who were listening, they would not have thought that it was valiant or good for a shepherd to die. This is the mystery of the gospel, isn't it? Jesus is always taking our assumption and turning them on their heads to teach us a spiritual truth. Jesus says, I am the good shepherd and the good shepherd lays down his life for the flock. He will die for the flock. Now, the people knew that it was never a shepherd's intent to die so what is it then that Jesus is trying to speak of? What is it that Jesus is trying to show? It's this distinction between himself and their common notion of a shepherd that Jesus is driving towards. He is the good shepherd. There is so much to be considered in the word the. The means unique rather than a, had he said, I am a good shepherd that would imply there are other good shepherds. But he is the good shepherd who lays down his life for the sheep. He is the excellent shepherd because they will be saved once and for all by this shepherd's death. The Old Testament scripture that might have come to their mind was Isaiah 25-8, had they been thinking in these lines. He will swallow up death forever and the Lord will wipe away tears from faces. The swallowing up of death forever, how will that be achieved? We know through the death of Christ. But as this mystery is being unfolded to the people of Jerusalem, how are they to now match this idea of the concept of a shepherd who lays down his life to the swallowing up of the enemy death? We understand death as an enemy. We feel all of our lives as soon as we become self-aware that death stalks us like a lion. It stalks us like a wolf, like a bear, seeking to devour and destroy us. We feel it sneaking up closer on us with every celebration of a birthday, with every passing of an age or a time or an epic of history. We can feel the hot breath drawing closer and closer to us. We understand the predator of death. But yet we are promised that God will in some means and in some fashion swallow up death forever, and that all suffering will be wiped away represented by the tears that are wiped away from faces. 1 Corinthians 15 and the New Testament elaborates on this for us in chapter 5, death is swallowed up in victory, death is swallowed up in victory, oh death, where is your victory? Oh death, where is your sting? Thanks be to God for the victory of our Lord Jesus Christ. His victory came through his vicarious death. Allow me to use the word vicarious intentionally, not because it's fancy, not because it's a word that we don't use frequently. Actually we don't have a reason to use it frequently in our own vocabulary because we find little application when talking about ourselves to use the word vicarious. It is a word that uniquely describes the work of Christ. This past week, again I mentioned our Wednesday study the week before, we sat together and we listened again to some teachings of those who were involved in the word of faith movement. Men like Benny Hinge or Olstein, Kenneth Copeland, T.D. Jakes or Roberts, Kenneth Schuller, Frederick Price, Kenneth Hagen, Robert Tilton and others, most of those whom if you flip on the television to a religious station, most of these will be on your screens and you'll pick up little snippets of ideas and concepts which only sound a little out of accord with the Christian faith but you will say for the bulk of it, it sounds reasonable enough. Over time they feed you this and they feed you this until before long you are heretic and you don't even know it because they are teaching rank heresy. And so what is it that they would teach that has any application for what we do today? Well in their words as we listen to them last Wednesday night, they teach that Jesus became the devil. He became Satan but he had to. You see the devil sinned and as an angel he sinned when he sinned, he that's when he became the devil so since Jesus becomes sinned for us you see we're left with no theological alternative except that Jesus became the devil. Nowhere in the scripture does it teach that Jesus became the devil and yet that is the rationale or the logic that they use because they also say that you and I are God. Well we're created first in the image of God and then the Holy Spirit in dwells us and so we must be God and since that then is the truth as they teach it then they also deduce well we could have done exactly the same thing Jesus did. Because if we are God made in his image and we were men of flesh as Jesus was if we weren't well by the Holy Spirit then certainly these word of faith men would teach then we could have done the same thing Jesus did. Do you see why the mission of the church is so urgent? Do you see why the clarification of our theology is so important? The Protestant churches today have such a lack of theological sophistication and that loss of theological sophistication has called an outright rejection of theology if we have to be frank. Now that is one of the great seven sins I guess now there is eight the speaking and theological terms is one of the great sins according to the Protestant church. As left us with a spiritual vacuum and void to where we are susceptible to whatever teaching may come along and the world outside that listens and wonders well what is it that the Christian church is teaching. They hear this foolishness and this nonsense and they take us to be insane and they will not come to hear the truth because these are our ambassadors and representatives that are on the channels that we turn to. They are the ones with the books that are on the bookstore shelves of the Christian bookstores what they say must be what the Christian church believes but it is not it is heresy but we lack enough the logical sophistication to be able to say what is wrong with it. What Jesus is teaching here concerning his vicarious atonement is one of those areas that if rightly understood completely destroys all of the heresy which I just outlined for you. It completely tears a sunder all of the framework on which their wrong theology is built and this has been no secret or it has been no new teaching. This is what the church is held throughout the ages but we don't know it any more. The vicarious atonement of Jesus what does it mean? Satisfaction of divine justice for others not for himself let me expand upon this. Matthew chapter 20 verse 28 the son of man came to give his life a ransom for many or in Mark chapter 10 verse 45 this is my body which is given for you. That word for so common for us I did this for you that would mean oftentimes on account number for your benefit. I did something for you today I did you a favor I added to you I gave you some addition to your life that's not the intent of this word anti in the Greek I'm sorry I wasn't going to use that but wanted to show you there is a word for it and this word is mean the thrust of this word and what it means is instead of not on account of not for the benefit of but in the place of in the place of. Now that doesn't sound for unto your ears until we begin to work out just what that means in the place of such as in Matthew 5 38 in the place of and I for and I and I in the place of and I in other words in exchange one for another. Not simply an adding to not simply an uplifting or a blessing but one in the stead of another one in place of another. He was our vicar maybe that word is a little more familiar to you vicarious atonement Christ was our vicar what is a vicar a person who is deputized to perform the function of another and Christianity is it is the atoning for sin by suffering we are the transgressor we are the center and it is we who owe atonement for our sin. It is we who owe the price it is we who have committed the infraction it is we who have offended God not Christ it is we whose sin requires justice and if God held only the attitude attribute of perfect justice without also having perfect mercy the entire human race would already be extinct. Now that is sobering especially to a people who would claim that they are God and that Christ became Satan the vicarious atonement is a case of the sovereign judge putting himself in the place of the criminal. In 1 John chapter 3 verse 4 everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness because sin is lawlessness we are lawbreakers and we are guilty this is what we are going to call actual guilt it is a very real guilt for real offense. We have really broken God's law we have really broken his commandments we have really offended him and sinned against him and the actual real guilt belongs to me and it belongs to you. It is my guilt mine not theoretically because man and Adam sinned many moons ago that is the sin full nature that is passed down and we are condemned in the sin of Adam but I have actual guilt. I myself am a transgressor against God so while we confess our sins we don't confess that once upon a time Adam sinned and so we have asked forgiveness and therefore sin is no longer important to us we confess because we still transgress God's commandments we are still sinners. Personal atonement is atonement made by the offending party if I were to die for my sins I've offered personal atonement but I'm a sinner and so I can also be saved I can only pay for my sin by my death vicarious atonement on the other hand is an atonement that is made by the offended party if I were to tell you a story of this. There is a distinction here that I don't want us to lose this morning it is critical critical to our understanding of our own faith. Suppose a man this illustration was told by Arielle Dabney a great southern Presbyterian several years back. If a man stole a horse worth a hundred dollars he took the horse and he sold the horse because he needed the money he took the money and he went any gamble thinking he would expand it but he lost it all. The horse is unrecoverable the money is unrecoverable the man who lost the horse has lost one hundred dollars worth of property that cannot be replaced. When the man comes to court for the stolen horse the man who has lost the property also comes to court but seeing the man and his family and how in great need they were he's moved with compassion and mercy and so he decides to forgive the debt. He decides that he will not hold this man to repay the hundred dollars in removing the guilt and removing the offense against himself has he actually changed the character of the man he has not. There is sin our sin betrays a sinful character when Christ took our sin upon the cross he took the guilt which can be transferred he took the punishment which can be transferred but my character was not impugned upon him on the cross. It was not in that sense which he became my sin he took the burden of my sin he took the punishment of my sin but I am left with the carnal nature which our lives of living out sanctification by the power of the spirit to become imitators of God to seek to be sanctified by the spirit of God to be transformed into Christ likeness all of our lives we are seeking the mortification of sin in our body. We have a character of sin and we are just simply self deluded if we don't believe that we have a character of sin and struggling instead every day. That was not transferred to Christ what was transferred to him was the punishment due in his making vicarious atonement to propitiate God's wrath. The ESV version of the Bible which came out in the 50s I believe to wean people off the King James version was liberal at points one of those points was their choice of the word expiation over propitiation expiation is a covering over a sin that God just covered over the sin I would suggest to you that that's most of our views today that God just because of Christ he decides to just cover over the sin and not be concerned about it anymore. Propitiation is a turning away of wrath because justice is satisfied one is Jesus died and so God just covers over the sin and hides it from his view. The other is God is turned away from wrath because divine wrath has been satisfied in justice because our sin makes us the guilty party our personal atonement can't be vicarious can it. So we can't be gods I cannot die for you if I die it's simply the just sentence for my crime I can't die in the place of another Psalm 497 none of them can by any means redeem his brother nor give to God a ransom for him. Matthew 1626 what shall a man give in exchange for his soul we cannot purchase our soul we can only die for our sin we cannot purchase our soul the atonement the atonement had to involve a suffering which was for the crime. The Old Testament taught us that in Leviticus 4 and Leviticus 6 if the whole congregation of Israel sins and her guilty then the congregation shall offer a young bull for their sin. The elders of the congregation shall lay their hands on the head of the bull and the bull shall be killed in the priest shall make an atonement for them and they shall be forgiven. If a soul sins and commits trespass against the Lord he shall bring his trespass offering unto the Lord a ram without blemish and the priest shall make an atonement for him before the Lord and it shall be forgiven him. There was a sense of loss in atonement there was a sense of suffering they brought the best of their bull the best of their flock it was a loss for them when they came and offered a sacrifice for their sin and it was only temporary because their actual sin occurred again and they had once again to offer for an atonement for their sin. What loss have we suffered and the eternal forgiveness which we celebrate in Christ such is the vicarious atonement of Christ. Your price is the death of the fleshly man and the birth of a spiritual man. It was Christ who suffered it was Christ who took just as they would take the bull and it had to suffer they slit the throat and the bull with the language as it bled out on the altar and then the bull would have to be consumed completely by fire such was the utter destruction required. None of us have suffered to the point of shedding blood none of us have suffered and in the sense of an atonement Christ on the cross suffered in the flesh he suffered our punishment what sin had he committed what blasphemy to say that this one called Christ became Satan because of sin. He suffered the punishment due to me he suffered my anguish he suffered my loss and gave to me by grace and mercy salvation in Jesus Christ in his name he is our shepherd. Luke 9 22 told us the son of man must suffer many things and in Matthew 27 34 Jesus refused the wine and all mixture that might have reduced his suffering his suffering had to be complete his suffering had to be real for it to be a real vicarious atonement the forgiveness awarded as the remission of sins and the satisfaction of the divine justice of God in the very real and little sense the preaching of the gospel. So Jesus having made this vicarious atonement we who are his sheep have intimate personal knowledge with with God we've been united with God we have a we have a we have the offense has been removed and now God and his people are able to dwell once again Galatians 4 9 now that you've come to know God or rather to be known by God how can you turn back again to the weak and worthless elementary principles of the world. First Corinthians 8 3 if anyone loves God he is known by God the language of our knowing God isn't just awareness of God that's what not what knowing God is we have acknowledged Christ and that acknowledgement of Christ corresponds to the knowledge of the son of the father we know he knows us we know he has our Lord and our savior and we follow him we know that we are under his care in his protection and in his divine knowledge not one is overlooked for from the youngest and the least to the oldest not one of God's flock is overlooked. Jesus has been using this analogy of a shepherd up till now but then you notice as we were going through the passages he changes in verse 15 he changes the way he speaks. I lay down my life for the sheep here he doesn't say the good shepherd he says I he makes a shift doesn't he and he makes it very personal I lay down my life for the sheep pointing out that not only is it vicarious but it's voluntary he says this in several places is emphasizing the point verse 11 verse 15 verse 17 verse 18 he's pushing to them I voluntarily no one forces atonement upon Christ he offered his human nature on the altar of the divine he offers his human nature on the altar of the divine nature as a perfect sacrifice for man as our high priest Jesus is our high priest Jesus a faithful priest who mediates between man and God it was voluntary no one takes his life he lays it down voluntary had to be for it to be vicarious Jesus died our death in our place for our very real sin and guilt before God this is why this is why he is the good this is why he is the more excellent shepherd because in him alone do we the sheep of his pasture receive the forgiveness of sin and the salvation of our souls