2970 Baird Rd., Shreveport, LA 71118

CHRIST ALONE-SCRIPTURE ALONE-GRACE ALONE

July 3, 2005

OPPORTUNITIES FOR WORSHIP

SUNDAY

WEDNESDAY

6:30 PM- Mid-week Service

Nursery care available for all services for ages 4 and younger.

CONTACT INFORMATION

Ken Wimer, Pastor- ( (318) 687-4943

PO Box 5028, Shreveport, LA 71135

E-MAIL: pastor@shrevegrace.org

WEB SITE: http://www.shrevegrace.org Updated weekly with audio messages now available on-line.

CALL TO WORSHIP 

(Tune: ‘He Leadeth Me’ #295)  Based on Psalm 119:9-6

ow can the young keep their ways pure?

When they guard them all through your word.

I seek you with my whole heart, Lord;

Don’t let me stray from what you teach.

I’ve laid your word up in my heart,

That I might not against you sin.

Blessed are you, O Lord my God;

Teach me your statutes and your ways.

With my own lips I do declare

All of the things that you command.

All of your laws are my delight

As much as in the whole world’s wealth.

On your precepts I’ll meditate,

And fix my eyes upon your ways.

I will delight in all your laws;

I never will forget your word.

FULL PARDON!

“I, even I, am He that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins,”

 Isaiah 43:25

HAT an amount of guilt has He pardoned!  It is impossible to overstate this.  No view that I can now take of it ascends to the truth.  My original debasement, my wayward youth, my rejection of His love, my rebellion against His authority, my forgetfulness of His goodness, my backslidings from His way, my inconsistent profession, my vain and sinful example, the wickedness of my unconverted state, the errors of my renewed state.  Alas!  Every day and every act brings up its separate testimony.  And all condemn me!  But He has freely pardoned!  He has blotted out this whole fearful record!  He will remember it no more!  “He will turn again, he will have compassion upon us; he will subdue our iniquities; and thou wilt cast all their sins into the depths of the sea,” Micah 7:19

 GRACE GEMS  

SUBSTITUTION OR TRANSFUSION?

“Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows:  yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.” Isaiah 53:4

here are those who teach that when Christ was made sin (2 Corinthians 5:21), he was actually made a sinner, or his nature made sinful, when God charged him with the sin of His elect.  While this may seem to be the logical interpretation of what that scripture means, it goes well beyond what the Scripture teaches, and is in fact a denial of the very nature of our Lord Jesus as the sinless Lamb of God.  There are several reasons, which I prayerfully submit.

1. There is a word for ‘sinner’ that the Spirit of God could have used if the purpose was to reveal that Christ was actually made a sinner as some say, by taking on Him the sin of His people.  However, the Spirit of God used the words ‘made sin,’ and qualified them with, ‘who knew no sin,’ lest any should conclude that he became something other than sinless, except by the imputing of the sin of God’s chosen ones ON Him, charging them TO Him, and thereby punishing Him FOR their sins, which were never His own.  The same word is used to describe ‘the sin offering,’ Psalm 40:6, Romans 8:3; Hebrews 10:6, which Christ fulfilled by His death.   SUBSTITUTION is what the Scriptures teach, i.e. our sins put on Him, not transfusion, supposing that sin was put in Christ.

2. The best commentary on scripture is scripture itself, and the language of Isaiah 53 clearly shows how sin was laid on our Lord as the Lamb of God, not put in him.  ‘He hath borne [to lift up] our griefs [weaknesses which are the effects of sin], and ‘carried [to bear a load that is laid ON one] our sorrows’.  When Christ was made sin, it was that the whole charge of the sin of all of God’s elect was put to His account once for all, and that He suffered at one time for them, putting away their sin, being obedient unto death, Phil. 2:8. He took on Him the just sentence of sin that the law required, and thereby satisfied the law, justifying God in showing mercy to His chosen ones, Christ having paid the full price by His death.  He certainly appeared to be a sinner in the eyes of others who condemned him to die, but in God’s eyes, He was the spotless Lamb, I Peter 1:19, who willingly laid down His life, suffering the consequence of sin that God might be just to justify, upon Christ’s death, everyone He chose.  I rejoice in Him who was made sin, by imputation, which then has made me righteous before God, also by imputation.  THAT’S SUBSTITUTION!

KEN WIMER