Solus Christus #2

Look at how the doctrine of solace Christus just radiates out like the sun against a brilliant sky. If this were the last message I ever preached, this would be a great note to go out on. We could just take the chariot and go straight to heaven on the truth that we're talking about here today. Welcome to the Truth Pulpit with Don Green, founding pastor of Truth Community Church in Cincinnati, Ohio, where Don teaches God's people God's Word.

Hello, I'm Bill Wright. Today, Don continues our series titled The Five Solas with part two of a message called Solus Christus, Christ alone. Last time, Don showed us why the person of Christ is absolutely unique. Only he is both God and man, thus able to bridge the gap between humankind and our Creator. On today's program, Don will consider the work of Christ, and you'll be reminded how his sacrifice on the cross took place once and for all.

So have your Bible open and ready as we join our teacher now in the Truth Pulpit. Now secondly, let's consider the work of Christ and why his work means that only Christ could be the Savior. We are saved because of Christ alone, because he alone has done what is necessary to save man from his sin. He alone has fulfilled what God requires, and he has done what no one else could do. He is what no one else could be.

He has done what no one else could do. Solus Christus, Christ alone. And his work is necessary because our sin incurs a debt to God that we cannot pay.

We have an infinite debt and we are bankrupt, and we cannot pay it on our own. And God requires payment, and it requires a high price indeed. Look at the book of Hebrews chapter 9 with me, if you will. Hebrews chapter 9.

Hebrews chapter 9 in verse 22. According to the law, one may almost say that all things are cleansed with blood, and without shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sin. What's the price of sin? What does sin require as its payment?

Blood. Righteous blood. Righteous infinite blood alone can wash away our sins. And as a result of God's requirement for a blood sacrifice, a blood payment, that puts the cross of Jesus Christ at the center of everything about true Christianity. There is, beloved, there is no Christianity apart from the cross. You cannot take away the cross and try to keep the morality and say you've got Christian morality, but to deny the substitutionary atonement of the cross. You take away the cross, you take away the penal substitution of Christ on the cross, and you have thrust a dagger into the heart of Christianity.

You have killed it when you remove the cross and the work of Christ on the cross from your message. Look at verse 27 of Hebrews chapter 9. Well, actually go to verse 24 where it says, Christ did not enter a holy place made with hands, a mere copy of the true one, but into heaven itself now to appear in the presence of God for us.

You see the substitutionary nature? You see how he represents us? How he carries us as it were to God in his person and in his work? Apart from that, there is no access to the holy of holies. Apart from that, there is no access to heaven. Verse 27, in as much as it is appointed for men to die once and after this comes judgment, so Christ also, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time for salvation without reference to sin to those who eagerly await him. Christ is coming back for those who have believed in him.

The ones who will welcome his coming are the ones who will have put sola fide and solus Christus, faith alone in Christ alone. And it was his one time sacrifice on the cross that bore our sins and paid the price that God requires. Look at 1 Peter 1, verse 18, and we'll look at a few passages here in 1 Peter. This work of Christ paying the debt through his shed blood on the cross, this work of the Christ substituting on behalf of sinners who believe with him, this work of Christ paying and shedding the blood that alone can bring about the forgiveness of sin. 1 Peter 1, verse 18, you are not redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold from your futile way of life inherited from your forefathers, but with precious blood as of a lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ. The lamb being the picture of that earlier sacrifice which pointed forward to Christ, an unblemished lamb in innocence, an unblemished lamb offered in substitute of the one who offered it. The blood of the lamb providing the meeting place where God could be met, providing the sacrifice that God accepted for fellowship with him.

The blood of Christ providing the single solitary meeting place where sinners can find their way to God. Look at chapter 2, verse 24 of 1 Peter. 1 Peter 2, verse 24, he himself bore our sins in his body on the cross so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness, for by his wounds you were healed. Notice the emphasis, beloved, in verse 24.

He himself, he and no other did this work. He alone bore our sins in his body on the cross, no one else. And as we said last year in our series on Roman Catholicism, it is blasphemy and it is a sin of highest order and magnitude for the Roman Catholic Church to pretend to re-offer Christ in their mass time after time after time again.

As if a little wafer could actually turn into Christ, as if literal wine could turn into literal human blood without changing its appearance, it's just superstition. But even beyond that, to say that we must re-offer Christ again and again and again in order to pay for sin, again is to take a dagger to the real meaning of the cross where Christ's scripture says repeatedly once for all he offered himself for our sins. Chapter 3 verse 18 of 1 Peter. Christ also died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, so that he might bring us to God. Look at it again, look at the sweetness of those words and look at how the doctrine of solus Christus just radiates out like the sun against a brilliant sky. Christ died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God. And so at the cross, Christ was acting as our substitute. He paid the price that God required and he paid it in blood like God required. Without the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sin. Christ shed that blood and when we put our faith alone in him alone, the full merit of that blood is applied to our account, cleansing us, washing us, satisfying everything that God's justice requires against sin, all satisfied in that singular act on the cross when Christ offered himself up, the just for the unjust.

That would be magnificent enough, wouldn't it? But go just a little bit further and remember why he did it. Why he did it. For God so loved the world that whoever would believe in him would not perish but have eternal life. Again, you see the exclusivity of Christ in John 3.16, don't you? Whoever would believe in him would not perish.

But why? Why do we have a savior? Why did Christ do this? Because it is his nature to love and to give of himself for his people. He gladly bore your sin on the cross. Galatians 2.20, he loved me and gave himself up for me.

And not a love of feeling sentiment but a love of self-sacrifice where he laid down his life for you at the cross. In love, he received the wrath of God your sin required. In love, he had the Father pour out righteous anger on him so that it would not be poured out on you.

In love, he cared for your soul enough to bear the price himself so that you could go free. In love, in love, in love, in love, in love, in love, he bore the taunts of sinful men against him. In love, he bore the crown of thorns.

In love, he bore the nails. In love, he bore the wrath. In love, he prays and says, Father, forgive them for they don't know what they're doing. In the height of his agony, in love, he's praying for the very ones who crucified him.

What manner of love is this? What manner of God is this that does this for his people? Look at all the gods that men have made up in Greek mythology and throughout the course of time, and it's God's demanding something from the people. In Christianity, you see God doing something for his people. In love, going to the cross, going to the crucifixion, going to the supreme instrument of torture and execution ever known to man.

So severe, so harsh that Constantine outlawed it as a future means of punishment when he ascended to the throne in love, solus Christus. And when we think, beloved, about our response to him, where our highest affection is, we could say it in this way, what's the highest affection of your heart? Solus Christus. Who else? Christ alone. Who else died for my soul? Who else loved me like he did? Not the best spouse, not the most loving child, not a brother, not a sister.

No one loved me like that. And so, beloved, only at the cross was the wrath of God poured out to satisfy the justice of God. There is no other place where that work could be done. It was once for all, therefore it must be solus Christus. And understand that his work of substitution is effective. It did the job because of his person, his humanity enabled him to offer innocent human blood for human sin. His deity provided an infinite merit that can save many, that can save any that come to him by faith.

One writer puts it this way in a quote. Christ died that he might bear our griefs and carry our sorrows. He was pierced for our transgressions and crushed for our iniquities. Christ died for us.

He was delivered up for us. The sacrifice of Christ was a propitiating, justice satisfying, wrath quenching event. By his death, the justice of God was satisfied, end quote. His person, his work lead us to this conclusion of solus Christus. Solus Christus means that Christ alone is the only mediator with God. In 1 Timothy chapter 2.

I'll just read it for the sake of time. 1 Timothy chapter 2 verses 5 and 6. There is one God and one mediator also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all. One mediator, the man Christ Jesus.

Don't you see? In the biblical arithmetic of this, the biblical numerology on this stops at one. When you count the number of ways to God, you only have to count to one. When you count the number of individuals who could actually save you from sin, you only have to count to one.

Don't even try to count to two, that would deny the one. And as I said earlier, beloved, please hear this, write this down or remember it. Jesus Christ and him alone, solus Christus means this. No one else is qualified because no one else has his person. No one else has done the work. There was one work sufficient at the cross.

And beloved, here's the thing that I would have you see. In addition to all of that, also see this, no one else ever could. No one else did, no one else will, no one else ever could. Because no one else will be the God-man. No one else will be God in human flesh. No one else will ever go to a cross like Jesus did. And the perfection of his person, the perfection of his righteousness, the perfection of his shed blood cannot be duplicated. It cannot be repeated.

There is no one else. If this were the last message I ever preached, this would be a great note to go out on. I don't intend it to be, just to be clear. But if it were, we could just take the chariot and go straight to heaven on this, the truth that we're talking about here today. So what are the implications of these great truths?

I've been weaving this in and out throughout, but let's just draw it to a close with this. Solus Christus means that we utterly, completely, and defiantly reject the Catholic priesthood and their claims of the intercession of Mary as though we needed other mediators with God. The very existence of those doctrines and those men who try to serve in that capacity denies Solus Christus and is a blasphemy of the rankest, darkest order possible against our blessed Lord Jesus. Christ calls us to come through him alone. And what kind of pride and arrogance when Christ speaks directly to the sinner through his word and says, come to me and find rest? What kind of blasphemous, satanic, demonically controlled contrivance would seek to intervene and to put themselves in between the sinner and Christ?

No way. And how grateful we are for the memories of those men who stood and opposed it in the Reformation, which we're doing this series to remember the implications of Reformation doctrine. How grateful we are for John Knox and Zwingli and John Calvin and Martin Luther and Wycliffe and great men like them who at great personal cost with far fewer shoulders to stand on than what we have today took their stand on sola scriptura, proclaimed sola gratia, sola fide, Solus Christus to the glory of God alone. So solus Christus means we reject that Catholic abomination. Solus Christus means that we reject the modern notion that all religions lead to God. We come solus Christus. Solus Christus means that we are not saved by any righteousness of our own.

Do you see that? Solus Christus doesn't simply rebuke and refute institutions and philosophies. The great power of this great doctrine rebukes our own soul and instructs us that we ourselves have no merit. We come through Christ alone. We don't come as equal partners in our salvation. We don't come with checked baggage that helps us get to the destination.

We don't come with a carry-on. We come with nothing. We come to God solus Christus and not of ourselves, not of our own righteousness, not in our own boasting.

Solus Christus means that we look forward to eternity. We do not fear death. We have no fear of purgatory. There is no such thing. Sins are not paid for in purgatory.

They are not burned off. Purgatory as a fiction is a contradiction of solus Christus. The debt of sin was paid in full by Christ alone, and therefore we come through Christ alone. Solus Christus means that no one will go to heaven apart from Christ.

Man, woman, boy, and girl, you can only come to God through faith alone in Christ alone. Solus Christus reveals, as I've already said, the great love of God for sinners. Listen to this verse from 2 Thessalonians. In chapter 2 verse 16, Paul says, Now may our Lord Jesus Christ Himself and God our Father who has loved us and given us eternal comfort and good hope by grace, comfort and strengthen your hearts in every good work and word. Solus Christus tells us that our God has loved us and that our God does love us, that our God has taken care of our sin guilt and our sin condemnation, and all of that has been taken away so that we now have free, bold, and loving, confident access into His presence through Christ alone. Well is it that Christians for a very long time have sung, Amazing love, how can it be that thou, my God, shouldst die for me? Solus Christus. Christ alone has been our focus the last couple of days here on The Truth Pulpit. So Pastor Don Green has now covered the first four of the five solas. Sola Scriptura, sola gratia, and sola fide being the first three. Don will take us to the last one.

Soli Deo Gloria. The glory of God alone on our next broadcast. Don't miss it.

Right now though Don's back here in studio with some closing words. You know friend we realize that you may not be close enough to our church to be able to join us as you would like to on any given Sunday. So let me invite you to join us on our live stream that you can find at our website. Sundays at 9 a.m. Eastern Time. And also we have a midweek service on Tuesdays at 7 p.m. We would love to have you join us in that way.

A lot of people do. You might as well be one more that join us for those special studies of God's word and our church services on Sundays and Tuesdays. Here's Bill with some final information to help you find us. Just visit TheTruthPulpit.com where you can also learn more about podcasts and free CDs of Don's teaching. That's TheTruthPulpit.com Now for Don Green, I'm Bill Wright inviting you back next time for more from The Truth Pulpit where we teach God's people God's word.