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"WE PREACH CHRIST CRUCIFIED!" 1 Corinthians 1:23Pastor Don FortnerGrace Baptist Church of Danville 2734 Old Stanford Road Danville, Kentucky 40422-9438 I say with the inspired Apostle, "We preach Christ crucified." Man’s approval or disapproval, changing circumstances and times, religious fads and feuds have absolutely nothing to do with our message. All who are sent of God to preach the gospel see eye to eye in this matter. Our God has sent us to preach the crucified Christ to poor, needy sinners, assuring us that this gospel of "Jesus Christ and him crucified" is the power of God unto salvation. Yet, religious leaders everywhere are quickly and easily turned from this message to another to the everlasting ruin of men’s souls. Our Singular Message Christ crucified is to be the message God has sent us to proclaim. I have no other message. I own no other creed. Christ crucified is the sum and substance of my doctrine. There is no point in the life and experience of God’s elect (before or after conversion) when they cease to need the gospel. Therefore, we always point them to the cross of Christ and seek to make manifest the redemptive glory of our crucified Lord. Let no one misunderstand. We do not and must not neglect any other aspect of revealed truth; but all revealed truth has one message. That singular message is "Christ crucified." Second Coming Multitudes delude themselves by the excited study of eschatology. We rejoice to know that Christ is coming again in power and great glory. All who know God know that and rejoice in the hope of our Lord’s second advent. However, it is not our Lord’s second advent that justified us, but his first. We believe in and proclaim Christ’s burial, resurrection, ascension and exaltation; but we do not find the blessed peace of justification in these things. Our Lord’s resurrection and glory are the pledge, the declaration of justification accomplished, but not the accomplishment of our justification. "He was delivered for (because of) our offenses, and raised again for (because of) our justification. Therefore being justified, by faith we have peace with God." The Power of His Resurrection "The power of His resurrection" (Phil 3:10) has nothing to do with atonement, forgiveness, or reconciliation. "The power of His resurrection" speaks of our being renewed in the spirit of our minds, to our being "begotten again unto a living hope, by the resurrection from the dead" (1 Pet 1:3). "The power of His resurrection" refers to grace wrought in us, not to justification. Justification is the work of God accomplished by our Savior’s death, wholly outside ourselves. We are not justified by imparted, or infused, righteousness, but by imputed righteousness. The Blood It is the blood of Christ that justified us (Rom 5:9). It is the blood that pacifies the conscience, purging it from dead works to serve the living God (Heb 9:14). It is the blood that gives us boldness to enter through the veil into the holiest and go up to the sprinkled mercy-seat. It is the blood that we are to drink for the quenching of our souls’ thirst (John 6:55). It is the blood by which we have peace with God (Col 1:20). It is the blood through which we have redemption (Eph 1:7), and by which we are brought nigh (Eph 2:13), by which we are sanctified (Heb 13:12). It is the blood which is the seal of the everlasting covenant (Heb 13:20). It is the blood which cleanses (1 John 1:7), which gives us victory (Rev 12:11), and with which we have communion in the Lord’s Supper (1 Cor 10:16). It is the blood which is the purchase-money or ransom of our souls (Acts 20:28). AMEN. |
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