Parable of the Pharisee and Publican: The Parables of Jesus Explained | Pastor Allen Nolan Sermon

two weeks ago we studied the parable of the unjust judge in luke chapter 18. tonight we're going to study another parable that's found in the very same chapter we're going to study the parable of the pharisee and the publican so turn with me if you would to the book of luke chapter 18. we're going to read verses 9 through 14. this is a really interesting parable because jesus is preparing people for salvation and what he's going to have to do is change the mindset of the jews if you remember when we started teaching on the parables we said that matthew chapter 12 was a turning point in the ministry of jesus christ because that's where the religious leaders of israel rejected jesus as the messiah well you can't have the messianic kingdom without the messiah so when they rejected jesus as the messiah that postponed the messianic kingdom which will be during that period of time known as the millennium and in between the death burial resurrection ascension of jesus christ until the second return of jesus christ in which the millennium will start is this period of time known as the church age so jesus began teaching these parables we're kind of getting off but it goes along the same line in the sense that he's having to prepare not only his disciples but his future followers for salvation and what salvation entails and he has to change the jewish concept of salvation so if you would follow along with me as i read verses 9 through 14. and he spoke this parable into certain which trusted in themselves that they were righteous hope you caught that he spoke this parable unto certain people which trusted in themselves that they were righteous and despised others two men went up into the temple to pray the one a pharisee and the other republican the pharisees stood and prayed thus with himself god i thank you that i'm not as other men are extortioners unjust adulterers or even as this publican he despise others i fast twice in the week i give tithes of all that i possess and the public standing afar off would not lift up so much as his eyes into heaven but smote upon his breast saying god be merciful to me a sinner i tell you this man referring to who the publican went down to his house justified rather than the other who is the other the pharisee for everyone that exalts himself should be abased and he that humbleth themselves should be exalted now remember the whole purpose of a parable is to illustrate a spiritual truth so whenever we're studying a parable we need to ask one question what one question is that what spiritual truth is being taught or illustrated in this parable well this parable is like the parable that we studied two weeks ago we don't have to ask because jesus tells us what spiritual truth is being illustrated before he ever gives us the parable look at verse number nine and he spoke this parable into certain men which trusted in themselves that they were righteous and despised others so jesus was speaking to those who believed that they were good enough to go to heaven based on their own merit in other words they trusted in their good works they trusted in their own righteousness but jesus message is going to be clear in this parable you cannot trust in your own righteousness you might look good in your own eyes you might look good compared to other people but you are not righteous you need god's mercy and this applies to everyone across the board so now that we know what this parable is about let's study it let's go back and let's read verses 10 through 14 because this is the parable two men went up to the temple to pray the one was a pharisee and the other republican the pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself god i thank you that i am not as other men are extortioners unjust adulterers or even as this publican i fast twice in the week i give tithes of all that i possess and the publican standing afar off would not lift up so much as his eyes into heaven but he spoke smote up on his breast saying god be merciful to me a sinner i tell you this man went down to his justified rather than the other for everyone that exalts himself should be abased and he that humbles himself shall be exalted now i'll be honest with you most of us don't realize the stir that this parable created when jesus told it because we read this parable and we interpret it through christian eyes you see most of us were raised in church and we probably attended sunday school so we're very familiar with paul's teaching on grace mercy and faith so we understand that salvation is not of works listen any man should boast how many of you can quote that verse you memorized it oh wow maybe we need to teach on memorizing bible verses but anyways most of us have been taught that if you haven't memorized it at least you're familiar with it that salvation is not of works listen to men should boast but jesus told this parable before paul's revelation he told this parable to a jewish society who trusted in works a jewish society who was brought up studying the law and being taught that you needed to keep the law in order to be righteous so they trusted in their own ability to keep the law and therefore be righteous so basically this parable contradicted almost everything that they had been taught so let's look at the parable in the parable two two men went up to the temple to pray one was a pharisee the other was a publican now two thousand years later we already assumed that the pharisee is going to be the bad guy don't we oh yeah we grew up in church we've gone to sunday school we've read through the gospels so when we hear that there's a pharisee involved automatically we think all right the pharisee's going to be the bad guy but you need to understand something the crowd listening to jesus at that time didn't to them the pharisee was the good guy you see the word pharisee is derived from the hebrew word paras which means separated one or separatists so the term pharisee referred to a select group of jews who had separated themselves from the world and they had dedicated themselves to keeping the law now doesn't that sound like a good group of guys yeah it does these men were dedicating to dedicated to obeying god's law so they were seen as the good guys in fact paul was a pharisee how many of you knew that yeah paul was a pharisee turn with me if you would to the book of philippians chapter 3 verses 4 through 6. now you need to understand something there's nothing in the scripture that teaches that paul ever came along and said i'm going to cease to be a pharisee. he basically believed the way that pharisees believed he believed in a literal interpretation of the old testament a literal literal interpretation of the scriptures and as a result of that he classified himself as a pharisee but notice what philippians chapter 3 says though i might also have confidence in my flesh if any other man thinks that he hat that he hath whereof he might trust in the flesh i more now we don't talk like that today so let me just tell you what he's saying if any man thinks that he is a good man if any man thinks that he was righteous if any man could ever trust in his own works i want you to understand something i can do it more than that man then it goes further circumcised the eighth day of the stock of israel of the tribe of benjamin a hebrew of the hebrews in other words i'm not just a jew i am a jews jew as touching the law in other words as looking at the law and interpreting the law a pharisee do you see that now here's what's interesting he didn't say i was a pharisee he said a pharisee present tense concerning zeal persecuting the church touching the righteousness which is in the law blameless now contrary to popular belief pharisees were well respected among the common people in fact there were only about 6 000 pharisees in israel at the time of jesus but they literally controlled the nation in fact as you read through the bible it's like these pharisees are the most important people in the entire bible at least the new testament during the period of jesus and they were and yet when you find out that there were only about 6 000 pharisees in the whole land of israel at the time of jesus you think how in the world could they control the nation well the reason they could control the nation is because of the influence they had among the common people so when jesus said two men went up to the temple to pray the one a pharisee the other republican all the people went ah the pharisees the good guy the publicans the bad guy you see all of the fair or all of the jews consider republicans to be the worst of sinners because they considered them to be traitors to israel why because they were supporting rome they were collecting taxes they were abusing the people by taking excessive taxes from them but more importantly they were shipping it off to rome and they were supporting the system that was now controlling israel and to top it off there wasn't such a thing as an honest republican now i'm not giving you their opinion i'm not even giving you my opinion i just want you to understand something during the time of jesus in israel there was no such thing as an honest publican now pastor allen how do you know that i know that because the system didn't allow it you see a province was assigned to the tax collector with the highest bid that's how they assigned the person who had the right to collect taxes basically everyone would come in and they would give bids and they would say i can raise this much taxes for you and whoever had the highest bid actually got it and then the tax collector turned into the government the specified amount but he was allowed to keep the surplus that he collected so the only way that a publican could make money was to overtax the people think of it like this think about it if i was to say everyone in here owes the federal government twelve dollars and i'm supposed to collect the 12 for the federal government the problem is i'm not going to get any good out of it unless i can make a little money at it because everyone's going to hate me that i'm collecting taxes to give to someone else i'm taking money out of your pocket and i'm putting it in the pocket of your enemy so as a result of that i'm going to charge everyone fourteen dollars so i give the government twelve dollars and i keep two dollars that's how i make money now you need to understand something if you were a republican at that time you made lots of money and here's how it worked you had one guy that was over a province and he actually came in and he would bid on and say i can raise this much money in this province and if he was the highest bidder he got it then he came out and he bid it kind of like to subcontractors and you had different republicans at different places and they would say how much money can you get from this place and it was no different than a contractor going to subcontractors and bidding it out taking their bids and then they put their bid in that's exactly what was taking place so immediately when jesus said publican every jew turned their head they spat on the ground signifying their hate and scorn for them kind of like we do for the irs today if you don't something's wrong we're over taxed people anyways that's my personal opinion but anyways notice the pharisees prayer look at verses 11 through 12. the pharisees stood and he prayed thus with himself god i thank you that i am not as other men are extortioners unjust adulterers or even as this publican i fast twice in the week i give tithes of all that i possess now doesn't that sound a little prideful anyone hmm at least it does to me but you know what those listening to jesus at this time didn't see anything wrong with this prayer to us it seems a little bit arrogant and self-promoting but people they didn't see it that way not the common people in fact the rabbis actually taught them to pray that way you see the mishna does everyone know what the mission is the mishna is the oral law let me explain something a little bit about the law if you don't mind the rabbis taught after the babylonian captivity that the reason they went into captivity is because they hadn't kept the law and so they made up their minds that they were never going to do that again at least as as a nation and so you had scribes in fact ezra is the one that actually set that up so these scribes their whole job was to study the law and to actually teach the people the law but they went a little bit further and they said you know what the reason we were carried and kept is because we broke the law but the reason we broke the law is because we didn't actually tell people how to keep these commandments and so where it says thou shalt not work on the sabbath we need to tell them what work is and so they started defining what work was what you could do on the sabbath and what you couldn't you couldn't pluck a gray hair you couldn't walk so far or you could only walk so far if you went past that you were working on the sabbath there were only so many things that you could do on the sabbath and so they made this list well that was referred to as the oral law but that's also what the mishna is in fact it was written down still have it today but the mishnah is the oral law and it commanded that everyone who was entering or leaving the house of study pray a certain prayer the talmud cites that prayer let me read it to you here's what they're supposed to pray i give thanks to thee o lord my god that thou has set my portion with those who sit in the beth hamidresh in other words house of study you know what i just realized something you probably don't know what a house of study is to you how many of you know what the house of study was okay back up sorry about that the house of study was if you were dedicated to being a rabbi if you're going to be a scribe so you had the lawyers you had the scribes you had the rabbis basically a scribe a lawyer is the very same thing and what they would do is it was their job to actually study the law so they went to the house of study and that's what they did for a living basically today i would fit that category my job i get paid to study the word of god now this is what they were being taught to pray when they went to the house when they went in and when they left this is what they were supposed to pray and we have this in the talmud this is what it says i give thanks to thee o lord my god that thou has set my portion with those who sit in the beth midrash house of study and that has not set my portion with those who sit in street corners for i rise early and they rise early but i rise early for words of torah and they rise early for frivolous talk i labor and they labor but i labor and receive a reward and they labor and do not receive a reward i run and they run but i run to the life of the future world and they run to the pit of destruction you see they were already telling themselves i study torah i am a separatist i am a pharisee i'm separated from the world and my job is to study the law and to keep the law and i will do that now listen to the prayer that rabbi judah taught his disciples this was also at the time of jesus and paul one must utter these three praises every day number one praise be to the lord that he did not make me a heathen for all the heathen there's nothing before him number two praise be that he did not make me a woman for a woman is not under obligation to fulfill the law she's under obligation to obey her husband number three praise be to he that he did not make me an uneducated man for the uneducated man is not cautious to avoid sin now how many of you know the difference between an educated man and an uneducated man at the time of jesus an educated man was a scribe a lawyer a rabbi you see the pharisees and the religious leaders took note of the disciples that followed jesus and what they noticed with the were that these were uneducated men now it didn't mean that they couldn't read they couldn't write it didn't mean that they hadn't gone to school what they meant by uneducated men is they have not studied in the so-called approved house of studies they have not been under what we would seem to be a true rabbi and yet jesus was a rabbi and he was taking them through his rabbinical school but they took note that these were quote uneducated men and so this is the prayer but here's what i want you to see what this pharisee was praying when he went up to the temple was a common prayer and no one at that time saw anything wrong with it until jesus inserted one little thing and they all said ooh i never saw that before that ain't right look at verse number 11. he's talking about the pharisee and notice what it says the pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself yeah if you get a chance just open up your bible take a look at verse number 11. depending on your translation it might say something a little bit different but basically this is what it says the pharisees stood and prayed thus with himself now i want you to notice that phrase pray thus with himself in the original greek it literally says he himself he prayed these things in other words the implication is he wasn't praying to god though god was mentioned instead he was bragging to himself and hit about himself and his prayer was his excuse to brag on himself this was his chance to reaffirm himself to make himself self look good to tell everyone that he was okay he wasn't like others he was good and righteous and he was deserving of god's blessing because he was someone who was keeping the law to the nth degree now when jesus got to this part the people listening to the parable are starting to say to themselves hmm yeah but we know the pharisee he's good at least he's better than others and concerning the law he seems to be blameless especially if you compare to us the common people but you're right jesus i really never really noticed that it does seem every time we hear the pharisees pray that they're praying to themselves and not to god it does seem that they're using their prayer time as an opportunity to brag on themselves maybe the pharisees aren't everything that they're cracked up to be maybe they are trusting in their righteousness just a little too much now let's look at the publicans prayer look at verse 13. and the publican standing afar off would not lift up so much as his eyes into heaven but he smote upon his breast saying god be merciful to me a sinner in other words he was ashamed to even look at heaven you know it's kind of interesting this is really a part of human nature and we don't really see it because in adulthood we're actually taught you know you need to be with confident you need to have confidence you look the other person in the eye but just take a look at your children before you teach them those things when your child is in trouble they'll do either one of two things they're either look at you like this or they put their heads down you ever notice that and in this relationship to god in which he's the father we're the children even though that really wasn't the type of relationship that was stressed until jesus christ came along you still see that creator with created person so he won't even lift up his head and look into heaven but he smote his breath saying god be merciful to me a sinner and he smote himself just like we do sometimes when we goof up now i don't really do but i think some people do you know gosh i can't believe i did that except they don't hit their heads they go i'm a sinner and notice what he prayed he said god be merciful to me a sinner now there's two things special about this seven word prayer first of all the original greek doesn't say a sinner no you see there's a definite article before the word sinner it's the sinner not a sinner so what the publican was praying was saying i'm not just a sinner god i'm the sinner i'm the worst of the worst secondly the public can ask for mercy now most of us think that mercy and grace are synonymous but they're not if i was to ask you what what is grace and what's mercy and what's the difference between the two how many of you could tell me the difference between grace and mercy a few of you could because i've taught on it before if you haven't ever written this down you really ought to write this down so that you understand what grace and mercy are and the difference between the two grace is getting what you don't deserve lisa do you deserve to go to heaven no but you get to go to heaven because of jesus christ you get something you don't deserve that's grace i use lisa who else doesn't mind if i use them as an example all right mercy mercy is not getting what you deserve do you deserve to go to hell maria yes you really do if it wasn't for jesus see you've learned that in jesus christ you don't but we're talking about outside of jesus we're talking about do you deserve to go to hell you bet you you do we all deserve to go to hell how do i know that in that scriptural for the wages of sin is death death is spiritual separation from god there's only two places that a person can go when they die before jesus christ death burial and resurrection you either went to the blues of abraham or you went to hades hell but if you went to the booze of abraham it's not based on your works it's because you had faith and trust that god would send a savior the messiah but even then they couldn't go to heaven until jesus came died for our sins and as a result of dying for the sins those who are in the booze of abraham who took captivity captive and he took them to heaven not their physical bodies their souls now when we die if we've accepted jesus christ we go to heaven to be with the lord our body still stays here but our soul goes to heaven if we don't accept jesus christ where does our soul go goes to hell hades the truth of the matter is all of us deserve to go to hell because the wages of sin is death separation from god that's what hell is a separation from god we all deserve to but are you going to maria no so you're not going to get what you deserve that's mercy now the reason we mistake them many times is because they work hand in hand i deserve to go to hell but because of jesus christ i don't get what i deserve which is going to hell and i get what i don't deserve which is to go to heaven so i get mercy by not going to hell but i also receive grace by getting to go to heaven so those two work hand in hand does that make sense and that's why we confuse them but we don't want to confuse them because sometimes in teaching only one will be referred to and when only one is referred to you need to make that distinction because it's teaching you something specific here the publican didn't ask for grace he didn't care about going to heaven he just didn't want to go to hell and so what he asked for was mercy he didn't say god let me go to heaven he knew he would never get that he knew that what he deserved was to go to hell so he said god i deserve punishment but please have mercy on me and don't punish me please please have mercy now notice jesus response in verse number fourteen i tell you this man went down to his house justified rather than the other for everyone that exalts himself shall be abased and he that humbles himself shall be exalted now this blew their mind the publican was justified and the pharisee wasn't the publican who was a sinner who took advantage of people who got rich at other people's expense who stole he cheated who was actually a traitor to israel and helped our enemy you're trying to tell me that he went home justified and here you have the pharisee who's a separatist he's separated from the world he's dedicated himself to the study of the torah and he's dedicated himself to obeying it and seeking the righteousness that comes from the law you're telling me he didn't this blew their mind so now you know why the pharisees rejected jesus see most of you think well you know i don't understand why they rejected jesus i'll tell you why they reject him it's because the pharisees trusted in their own righteousness and they didn't think that they needed to be forgiven yes the messiah was going to come but they weren't looking for a messiah that would save them from their sins because they were sinners thank god i'm not like this other person a sinner i'm righteous the messiah we're looking for in fact that's why so many of them after jesus were carried away by false messiahs the barkokuba rebellion most of you know the barcode rebellion why do they follow him because they thought he was the messiah they were looking for a messiah that would actually rescue them or or deliver them from rome and set them up and that the kingdom of david the kingdom of solomon that glory would come back to israel and they would once again have that power that honor that prestige that god had promised them and that was the type of messiah they were looking for and here jesus christ comes along and he is the messiah who's going to bring salvation give me a break so when jesus came along teaching that no man is righteous that all we need that we all need grace and mercy the pharisees and the religious leaders rejected him because in their mind that wasn't true in their mind they could earn righteousness by keeping the law so they rejected jesus and his message of salvation and we find that today it's just a little bit different our pharisees are not the pharisees of their day in which they study the bible now our pharisees of today are those who are legalists even though they're not religious legalists and being a legalist they don't tell lies they don't drink they don't cuss they don't take advantage of others they're just a good person and so when you talk about jesus they don't need jesus they're a good person if anyone's ever going to make the heaven it's going to be them heck they live right next door to that pastor you know what kind of a sinner he is i never have done what he's done now they might not be a religious pharisee but they're still that good old boy phariseeism that we have today but this is why the pharisees rejected jesus and his message of salvation now here's what's interesting let's ask this question who did receive jesus as the messiah those who didn't trust in their own righteousness it's amazing to me that the people who were attracted to jesus were the outcasts but you want to know why they were the outcasts because the pharisees didn't think they needed jesus and if jesus wasn't going to be the conquering messiah something is wrong with him and that's why there's this split in matthew 12. but he's doing all of these wonderful works and the common people are coming out and they're kind of confused because here's our religious leaders and you know they study the tour but they're not following him but man we're watching what he's doing and when he opens up the scriptures we're singing in a whole different light and the lord knows we're not righteous man we need his message so how many of you figured out what jesus was doing in this parable anyone figured it out yet what was jesus doing in this parable he was preparing people for salvation he was preparing them for the gospel because when jesus came he came into his own people and they received him not but the reason they didn't receive him is because they believed that if you kept the law you would be righteous and your righteousness would allow you to go to heaven and jesus comes along and he realizes my gosh now he already realized this he was alive with the father before he came but when he comes his whole purpose is to begin to prepare them for salvation and the one thing that he has to do is he has to break this mentality that you can be righteous by keeping the law because no one can keep the law no one is righteous and so what he's actually doing in this parable is preparing them for salvation preparing them for the gospel in fact let me share three scriptures with you this is referred to as the romans wrote of salvation i'm going to leave one off but i'm just going to show you how simple it is paul comes along with this revelation and here's what's interesting before i read these three scriptures let me tell you a little bit about paul when paul went on his missionary journeys he didn't set out to convert the gentiles no paul was a pharisee and he had studied on underneath the most prestigious rabbi in all the world and as a result of studying underneath him he probably knew more of the torah probably had the first five books memorized he knew the old testament inside and out and so where he went on his missionary journeys was to the synagogue so every time he went to a new city where did he go he went to the synagogue and because he was a rabbi and rabbis had special clothing he was a traveling rabbi he would go into the synagogue and the leader of the synagogue the ruler of the synagogue is what they called him who sat in moses seat would get up and you would do the reading but it was customary when a traveling rabbi came that you allowed him to deliver the message and so paul would be asked to deliver the message and paul would get up and he would begin to lay the foundation and in two or three sabbaths he would lay out the gospel of jesus christ and he would tell them that the messiah has come and through the old testament he would show that we're all sinners that we need a savior and that jesus christ is that savior that's what paul did so paul is right writing to the romans and i want you to notice what he's sharing and these are the very scriptures that he would have shared in all of the synagogues that he went to the first is romans 3 23 for all have sinned and come short of the glory of god oh my gosh you see we take that for granted being christians we grew up in church and i i want you to know the first thing we learned from the time we were this big is we're sinners and we've come short or we've fallen short of the glory of god now what does it mean falling short of the glory of god it means that god has a standard for getting into heaven but we've all fallen short of that standard what is the standard perfection none of us are perfect it's interesting that the the greek word that he used for sin for all have sinned it's the greek word hamartia there are different types of sin and each type of sin is given a different greek name some sins are worse than others the least offensive sin is hamartia and that's the word he used because paul understood that there's a lot of good people out there and these good people look at it and say well you know i'm not a bad person and he wants them to know you might not be a bad person but we've all sinned hamartia and the way that they would describe what this word means is they would use an archer someone who had a bow and arrow and they would say you know with an archer you have a target you would put the arrow in your bow you'd pull it back and you would you would actually go for the target and you might hit the target nine out of ten times but if you keep going back further and further back eventually you're going to miss the bullseye and that's literally what hamartia meant it didn't mean mean that you weren't trying to do right it simply meant that you missed the mark and what he said is we've all sinned we've all missed the mark and come short of the glory of god in other words we can't make it to heaven because of that romans 6 23 this is where i got you maria for the wages of sin is death wages is what we've earned you guys go to work every day and you get wages what are those wages you worked therefore you earned this money for the wages what you've earned for sin is death but the gift of god is eternal life through jesus christ our lord that's not mercy that's grace there you could say mercy's in there because we didn't get what we deserved therefore there's mercy but we're getting something we don't deserve which is eternal life grace notice how those two go together and then the last is romans 10 9 10 he tells you how to receive this gift of eternal life if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the lord jesus and shall believe in thine heart that god hath raised him from the dead thou shalt be saved for with the heart man believes unto righteousness and with the mouth confessions made in salvation so the question is who do you trust him yourself or jesus well let's talk a little bit about the word justified because he said that the one talking about the public went home justified and the other did not look back at verse number 14 and underline the word justified says i tell you that this man referring to the publican went down to his house justified rather than the other for everyone that exalts themselves should be abased and he that hums themselves should be exalted have you ever noticed in order to be saved you have to do what you have to humble yourself i'm a sinner have you ever noticed when i'm giving the altar call and i'm saying if you've never received jesus just repeat this prayer after me and i always start it this way god i know i'm a sinner and i know that my sin has separated me from you why do i start that way because the man that exalts himself and thinks that he's good enough doesn't need jesus but the man that realizes he's a sinner knows that he needs jesus now this word justified here in verse number 14 is translated from the greek word decayao and it means to make righteous in fact when i was growing up i would always hear my sunday school teachers to find justified in this manner maybe you have too justified means just as if i'd never sinned how many remember that yeah justified was just as if i'd never sinned and that's what justified means it means we're placed in a state of righteousness now in the new testament justification is an act of grace not of works in other words it's based on what god gives us not based on what we do we are made righteous through the atonement of jesus christ it's not based on anything we've done it's based on what jesus has done but in the old testament the pharisees never thought in terms of justification because righteousness to them was based on keeping the law and the mosaic sacrificial system so you did your best to keep the law but if you broke it you offered a sacrifice to jesus so in a sense you were always keeping this ledger i've kept this law i've kept this law i've kept this oh i broke that law better take a lamb so they'd take the land they would offer that and they'd go back to their ledger and say that was paid for and so in their mind they're keeping the law and if they do sin and break the law then they offer up a sacrifice as an atonement but keeping the law was their primary duty and that's what they were focused on and this is what paul had to talk about before we ever get to romans 10 9-10 that talks about believing in our heart and confessing with our mouth notice what paul wrote this is chapter 10 verse 3. he says for they being ignorant of god's righteousness what's god's righteousness perfection man they're ignorant about what righteousness is all about we talk about righteousness from a man's perspective but we're talking about from god's perspective for their ignorant concern and god's righteousness and going about to establish their own righteousness have not submitted themselves into the righteousness of god now i love the way the enlt translates this so if you don't mind let me read it for they don't understand god's way of making people right with himself refusing to accept god's way they cling to their own way of getting right with god by trying to keep the law so the jews tried to establish their own righteousness by keeping the law but we know that's impossible and that's the whole reason jesus christ came jesus christ came because you can't be good enough and because god is just and fair deuteronomy 32 4 god because he's just must punish sin if he doesn't he's not just and god can't deny himself we've read that in the bible what does it mean he can't deny himself it means that he must do certain things he must do what's right he must do what's just and just means that you punish sin and you reward righteousness so for god to be just he must punish sin sin has to be punished and because he's righteous or he's just righteousness must be rewarded the problem is no one's righteous so what did god do he sent this messiah and what this messiah came to do he's not a man he's god in the body of a man which makes all the difference in the world sometimes when we're teaching on theology we'll explain why jesus had to be god but anyways jesus comes he covenants with us and he becomes one spirit with us the holy spirit we make him lord of our life immerses us into the body of christ and he is joined and we become one spirit what's mine is his is what his is mine and he's made our sin and he takes our punishment he dies on the cross his soul goes to hell he pays the penalty of our sin and god is being just in the sense that he's punishing all the sins of the world in jesus because we're covenanted with jesus and then when all of our sins are paid for god being just is going to reward righteousness and what's the reward for righteousness eternal life so he looks into hell he sees a soul that's never sinned even in being made our sin and i've taught on that before how jesus can be righteous even though he was made our sin and therefore god raises him from the dead and because we're in christ our sins have been paid for and now his righteousness becomes mine people this is the only way a person can go to heaven there's no other way because any other way means that god's not just it means that sin has not been punished and righteousness has not been rewarded there's only one way that your sin can be punished without you having to go to hell yourself and even if you go to hell yourself because you're not righteous he could never raise you from the dead not be just the only way he can do it is jesus christ but jesus had to prepare them for his message and that was the purpose of this parable

Channel: Cornerstone Fellowship with Pastor Allen Nolan

Views: 9,468

Keywords: pastor allen nolan, allen nolan cornerstone, allen nolan bible study, allen nolan explained, allen nolan sermon, cornerstone church allen nolan, cornerstone pastor allen nolan, cornerstone fellowship, parables of jesus explained, jesus parable, parable, parable of the vineyard, parable of the sower, parable of the talents, The Parables of Jesus Explained with Pastor Allen Nolan, allen nolan, pharisees, pharisee and publican, pharisee and tax collector, publican, pharisee

Id: zw8V36f7aes

Length: 42min 24sec (2544 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 19 2020