[0:00] Singing from verse 14, the tune is Banga. Psalm 22, verse 14, and we sing verses 14 to 20.
[0:18] After we sing these verses, Professor McMullen will preach. May I just stay in introducing him?
[0:28] May I welcome him into our midst. Of course, this isn't the first time he's been here, nor is it his first visit to the island of Lewis. And there are many people, and perhaps some of them present here, no doubt, who have reason to remember with thankfulness to God, Professor McMullen's ministry on other occasions in this island.
[0:54] And our prayer is that, above all else, that the message of the Gospel with which he comes will be a message accompanied by the power and by the blessing of Almighty God.
[1:16] To him we look. And we welcome his servant to our midst and look forward with anticipation to his ministry.
[1:27] Let us turn this evening to God's Word in the New Testament. And in the first epistle of Paul to the Corinthians, chapter 15, and we will lead from the beginning of that chapter to come to the words of our text for this evening and to put it in its context, these words in their context.
[1:54] 1 Corinthians, chapter 15, at the beginning. Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the Gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand, by which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain.
[2:19] For I delivered unto you, first of all, that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the Scriptures, and so on.
[2:38] And I would like to isolate for our text this evening the words of verse 3, the words in verse 3. For I delivered unto you, first of all, that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures.
[2:58] And especially these words, Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures. For, perhaps more literally, Christ died for our sins as the Scriptures had foretold, or fulfilling the Scriptures, or as just as Scripture had said, in accordance with the prophetic Word of God.
[3:27] One of the very first things we become aware of, when we come into contact with Christian things, and Christian people, is the fact that the Christian faith has a death at its very centre.
[3:53] And it's the death of the one that the faith proclaims as its saviour, and indeed as its God.
[4:06] And that distinguishes, and sets off, the Christian religion from every other religion among men, and there are many. Other religions revere their teachers for various reasons.
[4:22] Sometimes for great things they have done during their lives. Sometimes for things they have taught. Sometimes for things they have said.
[4:35] Messages they have left about God, and about the world, and about humanity. And no doubt many of these religions have fine things in them. But the Christian faith is unique in this, that it has built itself, not only, or not merely, on the life of Jesus of Nazareth, but specifically, and specially, upon his death.
[5:04] We cannot read the New Testament Gospels without seeing that the death of Christ has a large place in them. almost more than half of the Gospel of John is devoted to the week of the crucifixion, and the events of the day before, and of the day of the death of Christ.
[5:29] When we go to the Pauline Epistles, the letters of Paul, we find that there too, the death of Christ is central, and focal.
[5:39] And, it's not merely, as some people would try and suggest to us, that, in the after events of our failed mission, the followers of Jesus tried to rectify what had been mistaken, and a mistaken approach, or mistaken teaching.
[6:01] because, when we go back to the very opening days of the ministry of the Lord Jesus himself, we find that he was being proclaimed then by his forerunner, John the Baptist.
[6:18] He was being proclaimed as a saviour from God in relation to his death. You're all familiar with the words, we all know them.
[6:29] The words we've known, if we have been brought up in Christian homes, or if we've been under Christian preaching, we've known since we were little, long before we understood their background, or their meaning, or their vitality.
[6:41] Behold, the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world. And Jesus himself spoke of his death from the very beginning of his ministry too, and over the last six months of it especially, to his disciples.
[6:58] He spoke again, and again, and again, and again of his death. I, he said to them, have a baptism wherewith I must be baptized.
[7:11] And if Paul picks up the teaching and the doctrine of the death of Christ, magnifies it, he does it because he found it, and drew it from the teaching of Christ himself by the Holy Spirit.
[7:28] And of course, not only Paul, but the other disciples also. Peter, Peter stressed the death of Jesus as the very basis and foundation of man's salvation, of the salvation of sinners by our gracious God.
[7:46] Talking of redemption, and peace with God, and cleansing from sin. Peter says this, we have been redeemed, and you can hear the thrill of it even in the words today.
[8:00] We have been redeemed, he says, not with corruptible wasting things such as silver and gold, but with the precious blood of Christ as of our lamb without spot and without blemish.
[8:18] And wherever we go, go to any of the writings of the New Testament, go to any of the men of the New Testament, and perhaps we should say to any of the women of the New Testament to go to any of them, and central to them is this fact of the death of Jesus.
[8:38] Now the very centrality of the death of Jesus is a danger to every hearer of the gospel. It is the most marvelous and the most unique fact, that has ever occurred.
[8:56] And yet we become so used, so familiar with the terms of scripture and with the fact of the death of Jesus that we become inured to it, immune to it, and it fails to strike us for the extraordinary thing it is and for the extraordinary achievement that it accomplished.
[9:26] If you are here tonight with any hope for your immortal soul, that hope traces back to the fact that Jesus died for sinners.
[9:41] hope. And there are many of you here who cherish that hope, and you do more than cherish it. You know it, and you are as sure of your salvation as you are that you're sitting here in this church this evening, and you're sure of it because of the death of Christ.
[10:02] You're sure of God's love to you, not because of what you wish to be, and not even because of what you believe you shall be through the grace of God, but you know God's love to you as you are, a lost, foul sinner before a holy God.
[10:25] And there is one thing that has demonstrated and proved that love to you, and it is the death of Christ on the cross. people sometimes speak very lightly of the fact that God is the God of love.
[10:44] I believe that once we come to know a little of what God is like, once we begin to believe what the Bible says, that our God, our Creator, is a God who is of pure eyes and to behold iniquity, and that the very heavens are defiled in His sight, once we become to believe something not only about God but ourselves, that we all are as an unclean thing, and that in us, in our human nature, there dwells no good thing.
[11:21] In other words, when we begin to believe that there is such a thing as holiness, and absolute perfection, and when we begin to believe under the teaching of God's word, that we ourselves as sinners, I believe that then the most impossible thing to human nature is to believe that such a God could love such a creature as I am.
[11:47] And it takes a miracle of the Holy Spirit in the heart of man, bringing his eyes to the cross of Christ, to believe, to believe that such a God could love such a one.
[12:07] And once our eyes are open to that, and we see that God has manifested his love to us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
[12:20] Do you know what happens then? Nothing in the world will convince you that that love was not real, and that it was not the most amazing thing in all the universe.
[12:38] Now we need to come back to our text, and really I'm at the end of my sermon, stay at the beginning now. Christ died for our sins, fulfilling the scripture. I want us to look just very simply at three things, and first of all at the declaration of the fact, the declaration of a fact, something which has happened, which has taken place in space, time, history.
[13:07] Something which has happened in such a concrete, real way, that we can go back to it, and date it, and talk about it, and write about it, and think about it, and discuss it.
[13:21] It is a fact, and it is a fact which will never be undone. God's people praise God for that. And it is a fact which, having taken place, affects the whole of history, the whole of history up until the time that it took place, and the whole of history ever since until the very end of the world.
[13:50] And according to the Bible, it is a fact which will affect not only the whole stretch of time, but will affect eternity as well. It's the central fact of history, and it's the central fact not only of the history of the human race, but it's the central fact in the whole of the purposes, and of the wisdom, and of the unfolding, if there is such a thing of the very being of God, of his self-manifestation, there is nothing in time or in eternity so real and so fundamental and so important as the fact that Christ died.
[14:37] And that fact has taken place irrespective of your attitude to it, or your beliefs about it, or mine. It has taken place and irrespective of what we think about it, or what we believe about it, or how we relate to it, it has occurred.
[15:02] And the very fact, the reality, the fact, the thing that has taken place is the central truth in the proclamation of the gospel of Christ.
[15:14] Paul, when he summarized his message here to this Corinthian church, and he summarized it more than once, made the death of Jesus the central truth, the pivot around which his whole preaching and the message God had given him, and the gospel he proclaimed, it was the pivot around which it all turned.
[15:37] I determined, he said to them at the very beginning of the letter, you remember when I came to you, how I came, and he tells them that he came in fear and trembling, we're glad that even an apostle knew a little about fear and trembling, and we came to you not with the wisdom of men's words, we came to you, he said, with the foolishness of preaching, we came to you with the foolishness of God, because the foolishness of God is wiser than the wisdom of men, and we determined, we determined, we made up our mind, and we persuaded our hearts that we would know nothing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified.
[16:26] That's how central the fact of the death of Christ was to him, and he was always declaring it, wherever Paul went, he spoke to men about the death of Jesus.
[16:38] Now, why? Why should the death of Christ be central to the gospel? I can remember many years ago now being made to think, although I had known that the death of Christ had been made precious to me many years before that, I remember being made to think about the death of Christ in a new way, because of our letter that crossed over my desk, years ago when I was just newly almost in the ministry.
[17:16] It was a letter from a university Christian union from one of our Scottish universities, inviting me to go and speak at a meeting of the Christian union.
[17:28] And my very first reaction was no one did. Not if you wanted me to speak on that sort of subject, because they had not only invited me to go and speak to them and preach to them, but they had told me what they wanted me to speak on and they had given me a title.
[17:46] They were always doing that. Sometimes not only do they give you a title, but they tell you what you have to say and how you have to say it almost. And they said the title they gave me stuck me initially as being completely out of place, almost blasphemous.
[18:06] And my initial reaction was no fear. And then the very way it was phrased made me think and think again. And I realised that these young people were asking the most fundamental and the most important question that anyone could ask.
[18:28] And that they were asking me to speak to them on the answer to that question. And the way they had phrased it was this, Jesus died so what? And it points up the question, Christ died so what?
[18:45] So did every other man that was ever born into the world. Why does Christianity make such a fest? Why does it talk so much about one death?
[18:57] When death dogs our footsteps every day. And do you know why? Do you know why these young people were asking the question? Do you know why God makes much of the question?
[19:10] Do you know why Christians make much of it? Do you know why the gospel makes much of it? It is because this death is so different from every other death. This death is so different from every other death that it's unique and unprecedented and unparalleled.
[19:29] There was never a death like get in the whole history of the world. And it was unique basically for three very simple reasons.
[19:42] It was unique, this death, because of what Jesus was. Uniquely different from every other death because of what Jesus was.
[19:56] What was Jesus? Well, the Bible tells us that Jesus was holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners.
[20:13] And because he was holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners, he was uniquely different from every other person who had ever lived.
[20:27] There were two people, of course, there were two people who had lived without sin. But they didn't remain living without sin.
[20:41] Only one man, according to God's word, only one person ever, lived without sin, and died without sin.
[20:53] Personal sin of his own. And that person was Jesus. Jesus himself, on the very eve of his death, said this of his relationship to God, I do always the things which please him.
[21:09] This is one of the attractive things about the gospel, and the Jesus that the gospels present to us, his relationship with God the Father.
[21:22] It's so calm, so confident, so trusting. Here is a man who knew God. Here is a man who knew God as his father, and who rested on the lovers of his father.
[21:40] There's that sense of, how can one express it, of peace, and total, eternal, unchanging stability around the Jesus of the New Testament.
[21:54] It's attracted every person who has ever read it. And then the ideals of this man, a man who was sane, and wise, in his thinking, and in his ideals, and in the standards he preached, it was Jesus of Nazareth.
[22:14] And then alongside these amazingly sane, calm, idealistic statements, and demands, and requests of the teaching of Jesus was something else.
[22:32] alongside of them were statements, which if they were untrue, were the statements of our mind completely unbalanced.
[22:48] He claimed to be the Son of God, and his claim to be the Son of God was understood by the Jews to be claiming to be God himself.
[23:01] It was the same claim. Therefore they stoned him, because making he made himself to be God. And all that we know of him, and all that history has to say of him, backs up his own claims to be doing always the will of the Father who had sent him.
[23:29] The prince of this world, speaking of Satan, he said, the prince of this world comes and he has nothing in me. He could find no sin in Jesus. He could find no place into which he could put the hooks of effective temptation.
[23:50] And the words of Pilate, although they weren't meant in that way, the words of Pilate are in a sense the words of God written over the whole of the life of Jesus of Nazareth, I find in this man no fault at all.
[24:10] And in that he's completely different. And you see, the strange thing is this, when we come to death, and the death of Jesus, and it's the death of a man in whom there is no fault, there's this anomaly, there's this strange, and in a sense this awful thing, that here is the one man who didn't deserve death and yet he dies.
[24:40] And we ask ourselves how can this thing be in the government of a good God, in a universe governed by a God who is righteous and holy, and who has related death to sin.
[24:54] And that's the way God relates death to sin. Death is an effect of our prior cause.
[25:07] Death is there because of sin. Every death we see is a fruitage, a result of the sin of man.
[25:21] And the first thing we feel when we come to the death of Jesus when we begin to think about it is there must be something wrong here. If this man is really without sin he didn't deserve to die at all.
[25:34] Why did he die? It points up the question, why did Jesus die? Because death for Jesus is the contradiction of all that he is as man.
[25:46] I want you just to remember that. Death for Jesus is the contradiction of all that he was. But let's go on to a second thing. It's not only a contradiction of all that Jesus was, it's a contradiction of who Jesus was.
[26:02] Who was Jesus? Well, listen to the apostle speaking by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit and it's the apostle who probably on a human level and on a spiritual level knew Jesus better than any of the other apostles, the apostle John, the disciple whom Jesus loved.
[26:26] There was three out of twelve and then there was one out of three. And there seems to have been in the man Christ Jesus, between the man Christ Jesus and the disciple John, a special spiritual relationship.
[26:42] And this is what that disciple who knew him so well wrote of him. By the hand of God, in the beginning, you're also familiar with the words.
[26:52] Listen to them. In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God, and the word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory.
[27:15] And we have to go on and say that the death of Christ, the death of this man, who is born of in such terms, is not only the contradiction of all that he was as man, it's the contradiction of all that he is as God.
[27:37] And then there's something else, not only what Jesus was, and what this death involves, not only who Jesus was, and what the death of this person involves, but the very nature of the death itself, points up the question of why he died.
[27:55] The cross requires an explanation for all these reasons, and for this reason. that the Bible says his death was uniquely different in the way it took place from every other human death that has ever taken place.
[28:17] Every other death involves man, or a woman, a person, being totally submissive.
[28:29] They are victims, and death comes, and we can do nothing to hold death back from them, ultimately. We can use medicine, the marvels and miracles of modern medicine, to keep death away for a little while, we think.
[28:46] And yet God's time is always there, and death comes. And although we would hold on to people, we can't, because death rests in from us.
[28:57] And yet the Bible says that the death of Jesus was different from that. The gospel that we read, Matthew 27, in that chapter I believe we should read often, it brings us to Calvary, and it shows us our need, and it shows us our saviour, and it tells us this, that although men did all they could to him, and although the forces of Satan were unleashed against him, and although the very power of heaven was there at the cross also, his own action and his own activity was not overborne, and it was not laid aside.
[29:49] and in the very article of death, he's there alive and strong, and he is yielding up his soul, his life is not being wrested from him.
[30:06] This is not someone dying as men die, this is the Son of God offering himself for our sins to the Father, and there's a loud cry, the last of these things that he spoke and cried from the cross, seems to have been the words that is finished.
[30:29] And they're very closely allied to the other words he spoke, into thy hands I commit my spirit. He does it himself. And this makes the death of Christ uniquely different.
[30:44] Remember, listening to Professor John Murray, perhaps I've said this in your hearing before, if I have let me say it again. The very first time I heard the late Professor John Murray preaching, he was preaching from John chapter 10 on the death of the shepherd.
[30:59] And he was preaching on the text, I have power to lay it down, what Christ said about laying down his life. I have power to lay it down and I have power to take it again, this commandment, have I received of the Father.
[31:18] And he said this, it's as though he said, he said the Son of God took his human body in one hand and his human soul in the other and he sundered them himself.
[31:32] death. And with one hand he held the soul in the presence of the Father and with the other he held the body in the grave and they were still united through his living passion.
[31:50] It was his own act. Professor Finlayson used to say to us in our theology class, he was very polite to us, he used to say gentlemen. gentlemen, he would say remember this, that Christ's death was not a defeat, it was a deed.
[32:11] It was his greatest deed. It was his accomplishment. It was his achievement. And it was his grandest accomplishment, his greatest achievement.
[32:25] commitment. It was the crowning act of his mission. So the very way in which he died, what he was as man, who he was as God, the very way in which he died on the cross, dismissing his spirit in control and in authority, authority of control of all that was happening.
[32:52] These things make the death of Christ uniquely different. And they point up the question as to why Jesus died. If we hold on to the thought of the government of a just God, and this strange, anomalous death, we still have to ask the question why.
[33:16] And that takes me on to the second part of our text, and it's this, Christ died for our sins. It's very simple. And yet it's so profound that we'll never plummets depths.
[33:30] It's so simple and yet it gives us an answer to a question, which is totally and eternally adequate.
[33:41] If Christ's death in a universe that's governed by a righteous and a holy God, if Christ's death is an anomaly there, and it is because it's the death of one who never earned death.
[33:55] If Christ's death is an anomaly, then the answer to why is as great as the question. It meets it and it's adequate to it. Christ died, listen to the answer, Christ died for our sins.
[34:12] I was saying that death always relates to sin, and this is true even in the death of Christ himself. His death is a death that relates to sin, not his own sin, but the sins of his people.
[34:32] Listen to the Apostle Paul writing to the same church in another letter. He says God made him, the Father, he made him Christ, he made him to be sin for us who knew no sin.
[34:49] that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. There's the answer to the question, why did Jesus die? He died because of sin, he died because of redemption, he died because God had purposed to overturn evil and to redeem a great multitude which no man could number.
[35:14] Out of all the nations and tribes and tongues of the earth, sin. That's why he died. He died for our sins.
[35:28] And you see, there we have the interpretation of the fact. We were thinking of the declaration of the fact. Paul was always preaching that Christ died.
[35:39] And the Apostle, under the Holy Spirit, gives us the interpretation of the fact. Now, any fact is meaningless until it is interpreted for us and we understand its meaning.
[35:55] Things happen and we say to ourselves, well, I have no idea why in the world did that happen. And sometimes if we're Christians and believers, we ask the Lord why such and such a thing happened.
[36:06] And then later on, perhaps we begin to see different aspects of it or we hear that something else happened as well and we say, ah, now I see. Now I see why it happened.
[36:17] Perhaps God in the unfolding of his providence explains to us why he did certain things with us. And we say, ah, I see it now. And that's the way it is with the death of Christ and Calvary.
[36:31] The Holy Spirit shines on it and he interprets it for us and it becomes meaningful. Christ died, why? for our sins.
[36:44] And you see, I was quoting there from 2 Corinthians 5 that God made him who knew no sin to be sin. And let me say to you something else I heard from Professor John Murray too.
[37:00] He said he could only have been made sin. He could only be made sin because he knew no sin.
[37:11] If he had known sin, he could not have been made sin. You see? It was because he was holy and harmless and undefiled and separate from sinners that God could take all the sins sins of all of all his people and focus them and have them all meet upon one who was totally innocent and totally holy and who was not only man but God.
[37:48] but because he was man and because he was God he could bear our sins and he could bring an infinite an infinite quality to bear upon them.
[38:08] He could bear infinite punishment because he's an infinite person and he could bear an infinite the desert of sin which was infinite because not because sin is infinite.
[38:24] Sin is not infinite. Sin is temporal and it's bounded by time and it's committed by men but it has infinite aspects because it is sin against an infinite God and it is sin against an infinitely holy God but even although it was sin against an infinitely holy God it could be borne by him because he was an infinitely holy man because he knew no sin he was made sin for us he bore our sins now that links Christ's death to sin and once more I'll quote Professor John Money I hope you're not tired he said this he said sin is always in death and death is always the wages of sin even when it's the death of Christ yes even when it's the death of Christ it's wages of sin not the wages of his own he had none but because he had none the wages of ours yours and mine and God interprets that fact for us and God answers the question
[39:50] Christ died once for all death and it was for our sins and if we have been brought to trust in Christ this other thing was true for us there remains no more sacrifice for sin because no more sacrifice for sin is needed one sacrifice for sins forever and it was totally infinitely eternally adequate it met all the need it met all the requirements and the need the need was yours and mine over against the fact of our sin our sin in thought and word and deed of every day that's our need and it meets that need over against the reality of our holy God who says still over oceans as well death the soul that sinneth it shall die and he has found death in the death of Christ the guilt of oceans visited in Christ the guilt of oceans born by Christ until there is no more sin in the eyes of
[41:20] God at all for any of his people it's an amazing thing that God in the death of Christ can do what you and I can never well he does that from every aspect but can do what you and I can never do in regard to memory even when God's people have their sins cleansed and forgiven and taken away and they know the peace of God that passes all understanding there's still one thing true about themselves and their sin they can never forget it even when David was I believe an old man he had to say this my sins and faults of youth do thou Lord forget after thy mercy think on me and for thy goodness great he couldn't forget his sin and you cannot forget your sin nor can I we sometimes think they've been buried and then blow their eyes up before us but God can forget them because
[42:39] Christ died thy sins he says thy sins and mine iniquities will I remember no more forever your friends will remember them even your Christian friends will remember your sins but your God has forgotten them and it's because Christ died for our sins now that brings very fact with us sinners that we are sinners when we are awakened by the spirit of God and the truth of his word to the fact of our sin it makes us afraid of God and when we see the sinlessness of Jesus Christ our own sin makes us feel very far away from him we are so unlike him and we feel that he is so unlike us and then the holy spirit opens our eyes and we see that
[43:41] God in his amazing grace has related two things his own son in our nature he has taken him and he has linked him into our sins in all their guilt and all their vileness and he has done it in a way which magnifies his own glory and magnifies his own grace and he has done it in such a way that it will be the praise of our sinless heaven for all eternity and to him who loved us and washed us from our sins in his own blood and to him be dominion and glory and power forever and would you deny it from him would you my friend and if you've had your sins forgiven you would say no you could never heap enough glory in his head for what he has done for you Christ died for our sins his death poses a question and the question finds no answer until you bring it and put it alongside of your own sin and then it's the answer of God's amazing mercy it's the answer of divine justice as well and of divine righteousness and because
[45:10] Christ has borne sins God can be just God is just isn't this amazing and the older I get and I'm getting quite old the older I get the more amazing it becomes that God can be just and the justifier of the ungodly who believe upon Jesus and that brings us to the last thought that I want to set before you this evening we've been thinking of the declaration of the fact Christ died and the interpretation of the fact Christ died for our sins and then I want to show you that there was an expectation of this fact Christ died for our sins according to the scripture or in fulfillment of the scripture or as the scripture had predicted and prophesied the death of Christ was no surprise to Christ himself and the death of
[46:18] Christ his son was no surprise to God the father this death had been planned in the divine councils of eternity this death had been purpose and there was nothing and let us say it reverently there was nothing under heaven that could set this death aside nothing when he had risen and we cannot separate his resurrection from his death it's part of the same when he had risen he said himself in memorable words to two disciples who still asked the question why did he die we thought they said we thought many had strange thoughts about how God would deal with them and then God dealt in a different way altogether but they said we thought that it had been he which had redeemed
[47:24] Israel and you know they thought that they had expected too much and because they thought they had expected too much they were downcast and the whole world had been darkened and then he came himself walking beside them in resurrection life and he said this to them ought not Christ to have suffered these things and entered into his glory the glory which is his uniquely and specially because of his unique and special death his mediatorial glory his glory as the savior of sinners his glory as the fulfiller of the father's grace and mercy towards people like you and me unique glory it's there and it had all been expected we were singing in psalm 22 a psalm that brings us to a place called calvary and indeed that does something that the very historic gospels the gospels that give us the history of calvary cannot do psalm 22 takes us by the spirit of god into the very feelings of the lord jesus christ as he suffered like water i'm poured out he poured out his soul unto death the old testament prophets were always using the word of messiah pouring out and he felt it himself like water i'm poured out he felt his bones parting out of joint suffering bearing our sins and you know amazingly that scripture speaks of hands that were pierced and of feet that were pierced hands pierced they pierced my hands and feet crucifixion was there and it's a fact that there was only a very short span in the whole of the history of israel when capital punishment personal death as a judgment would have been carried out under any law but the law of judah or judaistic law it was carried out and that's why it was crucifixion under roman law and the romans occupied for only a short time comparatively there's only a spell says one writer whether he's absolutely accurate or not
[50:07] I don't know but he says there's only a spell of 70 years in the whole running course of history when the crucifixion when the death of Jesus of Nazareth or the death of Messiah could have been by crucifixion some have spanned it out to a period of 100 or 120 years but certainly not more and yet prophetic scriptures spoke of it perhaps a thousand years before Calvary took place according to the scripture and you can go back to the very beginning to the very first promise of light and of grace given to man in his darkness the seed of the woman shall come and he not it but he shall bruise your head and you will bruise his heel and there it is at Calvary and you can go through the scriptures and you find that the death and the suffering of Messiah
[51:10] God's anointed one was set out and spoken of and let's let's let's rejoice in this it was believed upon by myriads of God's people through God's grace it was believed upon and he was trusted and known as the sin bearer long before Calvary took place and there was nothing nothing that took place in all the events of Calvary but they took place according to the purpose of God and very frequently according to the declared and revealed purpose of God and it's one of the things which should give us a great confidence in the Bible as the infallibly inspired word of God how could these things be that men spoke of them because
[52:10] God had revealed them to them revealed them to them these men knew Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures now that's not saying let me be very plain on this that is not saying Christ died for our sins according to the New Testament scriptures of course it did according to the New Testament scriptures the New Testament scriptures are always talking about the death of Christ but when they're speaking here of the scriptures it's the Old Testament Christ died for our sins fulfilling the revealed word of God and the word was there because first of all the purpose was there let me remind you again of who Christ was this is where our hope where the hope of every Christian believer lies in who Christ was and what
[53:10] Christ did it's as simple as that soul can let off put you and thank you