Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible

Guest (Male): When the Lord Jesus was nailed to the cross, he did not hang there as one who was learning suffering for the first time. We can never know what it meant to him to be brought into contact with sinful men. It is doubtful if any of us can know the fullness of his thinking when he looked with anger upon the Pharisees, being grieved at the hardness of their hearts. Oh, it would be so easy for us to look upon our enemies with anger, but he knew the grief that went with love for those who despitefully used him.

Guest (Male): Over a half a century ago, the late Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse, then pastor of Tenth Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, saw the need to spread God's word beyond the hearing of his local congregation. He started the radio outreach which has become known as Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible. The application of God's word as taught by Dr. Barnhouse is as relevant today as when he first taught over the radio airwaves decades ago.

The message we'll be featuring on today's edition of Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible is entitled Christ, Our Righteousness. Jesus Christ was God in human flesh, the physical manifestation of God's perfect character and righteousness. The Old Testament told all about him and pointed to him as Israel's Messiah. Yet, the apostle John wrote, "He came unto his own and his own received him not." Why did the religious leaders and people of Israel reject Jesus and the righteousness of God that comes through faith? The scripture text for this edition of Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible, Romans chapter 10 and verse three. Here again is Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse with a message entitled Christ, Our Righteousness.

Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse: Through the Lord Jesus Christ we come unto thee our Father and our God and in the Holy Spirit. Hear us we pray thee and use to thy glory the word that is sent forth. We ask in Jesus' name, Amen. Now we're studying together in the 10th chapter of Romans and come to the third verse where it says, "They have not submitted themselves to the righteousness of God." The men who have written about the epistle to the Romans have come to define the righteousness of God in three different ways.

There are undoubtedly those who think that the matter is not important, but the context of our passage clearly shows that the issues of life and death, of time and eternity, hang upon a proper understanding of the righteousness of God and our relation to it. The reason the nation rejected the Lord Jesus at the time of his appearance on earth was the ignorance of the method by which God makes men righteous. Being ignorant of this fact, as Hodge points to, implies ignorance of the character of God, ignorance of the requirements of the law, and ignorance of our own sinful nature.

Now, the first definition of the righteousness of God is that it describes the holiness of God. But in our text, it cannot mean that those who were ignorant of the holiness of God established their own moral excellence and so failed to submit themselves to the holiness of God. The second definition is that it refers to the method of justification which God has established. And the third definition is that it refers to the righteousness of which God is the author, the righteousness which he approves and which he accepts.

Personally, I would roll all three of these into one definition and say, with the next verse, that the righteousness of God is none other than the Lord Jesus Christ. When we have said that the divine righteousness is the Lord Jesus Christ, we have seen the holiness of God, we have seen the way whereby God saves men, and we have seen the righteousness which he is and which he bestows and imparts to those who are made alive in Christ. So if we read our verse this way, it can be paraphrased: they, being ignorant of the Lord Jesus Christ and going about to establish some other method of acceptance and approach to God, have not submitted themselves to the Lord Jesus Christ.

There were two principal reasons why the Lord's people rejected him when he came to earth. The first was what they saw with their eyes when he came among them. Christ was in humiliation. Their minds were geared to the pretensions of this world, and when they saw how the Lord Jesus had humbled himself, they despised him. It was because he had come so low that he was to them personally a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense. He had grown up in Israel like a root out of a dry ground. He had no form nor comeliness that we should look at him and no beauty that we should desire him.

It was for this reason that he was despised and rejected by men. Yes, he was looked down upon and not esteemed. Nevertheless, he was the eternal Son of the Father, one with the Father from all eternity. He was the one by whom all things were created, and without him was not anything made that was made. He could say of himself that he was the alpha and the omega. He was the one who could clothe the heavens with blackness and make sackcloth their covering, as Isaiah says.

All of the glory of God was Jesus' glory, and yet he humbled himself. Before there was the first motion of creation, before the heavens and the earth came into being, there was the eternal plan and covenant within the counsel of the Godhead: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. A plan that the Lord Jesus should humble himself even to the death. It was this humbling of Christ that the nation of Israel did not understand. The first step in that humbling was that he took flesh upon himself, that he united within his own person a human body and a human soul.

For the Lord Jesus had both a human body and a human soul. The Bible speaks of both. When he came into the earth, he said to the Father, in Hebrews 10:5 we read it, "Sacrifice and offering thou wouldst not, but a body hast thou prepared for me." And again, we read in Mark 14:34 Jesus said, "My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death." Now Israel did not understand this, that the Messiah should come with human body and human soul, and they were not prepared to accept such a one as their Messiah.

And by what means did he take unto himself a human body and a human soul? He took it through his mother, Mary. Though he did not have a human father, he did have a human mother. And it's very important that we understand that the humanity of Mary was a true and ordinary humanity, the same humanity that was possessed by Adam after his fall. Christ was made of her substance, truly born of her. And this manner of birth seemed strange to Israel, that the Lord of glory should be thus born and laid as a weak babe in the manger, formed in weakness indeed.

Once there had been on this earth a different kind of humanity, the humanity of Adam in paradise before the fall. When the first man was created, it was within a body that had no weakness and no infirmity. In Adam before the fall, there was no weakness. But there was strength, not the strength of God, but the strength of a creature who knew no weakness, no infirmity, nor any tendency thereto. But how different was the humanity possessed by Adam after the fall, the humanity that was possessed by all of his seed and which was certainly seen in Mary, the mother of our Lord. It was weak humanity. This was why Mary said in Luke 1:46 and 47, "My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Savior." Her humanity, it is necessary to repeat, was the humanity of the fallen Adam. It was a humanity that was connected with weakness and sin.

When the Son of God received his humanity through his mother, his was a humanity without sin. It was impossible that he, the holy one, could take into union with himself anything that was sinful and defiled. But he could and did take into union with himself that which was feeble, that which was weak, that which had physical infirmity in it. All that he was pleased to do. He was pleased to take upon him the form of a servant and to be born in the likeness of man. That low he was willing to come.

Was there any limit to the depths into which he came? If there was a limit, what was that limit? The answer can be found in a single word: sinlessness. It would have been impossible for the Lord Jesus to take any weakness that was sinful, but he took every weakness that was not sinful. It would have been impossible for the Lord Jesus to take any infirmity that was sinful, but he took every infirmity that was not sinful. All that was not sinful he willingly took. It was his covenant with the Father that he should take such weakness.

He was to know the fullness of suffering as man, even as he was afterwards to know the full eternal height of heavenly glory as man. All of this is to be found in his prayer to the Father, in which he said, "I have glorified thee on the earth." As man, he was to be the chiefest of all sufferers, and as man, he was to know all the fullness of the unsearchable glory of God. All of this was the righteousness of God, and of all this his people were ignorant.

Then too, having taken this feeble though sinless humanity upon himself and having the double sensitivity of God and of a perfect human nature, he, Christ, was capable of feeling and capable of suffering far beyond anything known to us. He was in everything a sufferer. Oh, what suffering was there to be suffered in innocence that he did not suffer. His path from the glory of heaven down through the incarnation to the moment that he commended his spirit into the hands of the Father was the path of a sufferer.

The sacrifices of the Old Testament were all typical of the life and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. And there is one type of his suffering that is not often mentioned. In the second chapter of Leviticus, there is a description of the meal offerings that were made in Israel. At the close of this chapter, it is said that all of these cereal offerings, offerings made with grain, were to be to the Lord of the first fruits. They were to take crushed new grain from fresh ears. Then there follows this significant phrase: the cereal thus crushed was to be scorched with fire.

Look at these two words: crushed and scorched. It was not to be burned upon the altar as a sweet savor to the Lord until it had first been crushed and scorched. Oh, what a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ in his life before he went to the cross. Before he could be consumed in death, he had to be crushed and scorched. He knew the bitterness of being surrounded by false followers and weak friends. He knew the weakness and fatigue of overwork. He knew what it was to hunger. He wept with grief of a man's true love for the sorrow of his friends. He was buffeted by the wrath of evil men and knew what it was to have his beard plucked and his face spat upon.

Oh truly, before he was ever led as a lamb to the slaughter, to be the fulfillment of the sin offerings, he was crushed and scorched as the fulfillment of the meal offerings. And why did he consent to all this? There is only one answer. Before the moment came when he was to bow his head beneath the full and fierce load of wrath, when it pleased Jehovah to bruise him and to make his soul an offering for sin, he lived the long life of the sufferer. Those earlier sufferings were not sufferings for sin, but he was pleased to take the fullness of the cup that was due to the sins of his people. Before he ever took the actual weight of the sins on the cross, he took the sufferings that are the fruits of sin.

But did Israel understand any of this? Our text tells us that they did not submit to the righteousness of God that was manifest in Jesus Christ. He was not only the head of the church, he was also the head of Israel. And as Israel's head, he had to drink with them and for them those bitter sufferings that befall that nation here, as well as that death which was due to his people. Christ was the holy, suffering one. He was the holy one, and yet at the same time he was saying, "Mine iniquities are more in number than the hairs of mine head."

And when Israel saw this, did they understand it? Did they indeed thank God that he had sent this great sufferer? One who was not only suffering for them, but in the midst of all those sufferings was presenting his own perfect holiness as a sacrifice to God on their behalf. For there was always this duplicate character in Christ, and his righteousness was manifested in the suffering. It was under the weight of suffering that the perfectness of the holy one was manifested.

Read the 22nd Psalm, which he quoted while he was upon the cross. Find here the outline of so much of his sufferings. Was there ever manifested more power of worship, more praise to God and prayer to God, more expression of confidence in God, magnifying God in the midst of those very sufferings? What communion there was between him and the Father, and what communion the Father had with the Son. True, as God he was bruising the Son, the necessity of God's holy government required it. But oh, how he loved the sufferer. What communion the Lord God the Father had with the sufferer. How the Father rejoiced over him in it. How he delighted in him. How he, the Father, saw the excellency of the person who there groaned under the weight of his rod. It was the very thing that the Lord Jesus had come to the earth to do, thus to glorify God.

And thus it was that Jesus presented the sweet-smelling savor of his own righteousness to God the Father. It was proved righteousness, tried righteousness, righteousness exercised in many and varied forms of suffering. And at last, it was righteousness exercised under the very depths of the wrath of God. But it was pure, fragrant righteousness, always acceptable as the frankincense that ascended before God. Why was this righteousness presented? So that it might be accepted by God for his people. Thus there were these two things in the sacrifice of Christ: righteousness and suffering.

But because it was all done in suffering and not in glory, because it was something that seemed to bring him so very low, as he had said in the psalm to which we have referred, "I am a worm and no man, thou hast brought me into the dust of the death." Because they saw this, they despised it and they despised him. They would not have despised an exalted humanity, a divine humanity, but this true humanity, lowly and suffering humanity, they despised utterly.

Now let us take heed that we own the true humanity and the true sufferings of the Lord Jesus. There is and there always has been a tendency in the professing church to despise it. Was not his humanity the same as ours, sin excepted? That is an all-important difference, but it does not negate the fact that the Lord Jesus was in all things like unto his brethren with the exception of his sinfulness. And we must understand too that his humanity was inseparably united with his deity.

He was not a human God nor was he a divine man. He was the God-man, appearing only once in this lowly fashion in the entire course of human history. He was like the beautiful veil suspended on hooks of gold in the tabernacle. The gold was one thing, the weak veil was another. No wires of gold were interwoven with that veil or it could not have been torn in two. But it was suspended on gold. Thus it was in the relationship of his humanity and his deity.

Our humanity is not suspended on or connected with that which is divine. But his humanity, which was weak like ours, was united with his deity. The union made no difference to his sufferings or to his weakness. His hand, when it was pierced, felt as much or more than your hand could feel. He might have put forth his power to lessen his sufferings, but he did not do so and he really suffered. When he could have asked his Father to send legions of angels to deliver him, he did not do so. He went on voluntarily to the end that the scripture might be fulfilled. He did not use his deity to help his humanity when he was in the extremity of suffering in the Garden of Gethsemane. He waited until the Father sent an angel from heaven to strengthen him. So there is never a question of what he might have done, but only that which he did do. He drank the cup of suffering to the end.

Now, the first reason for the rejection of Christ was that which they saw in him. The second reason for that rejection was for all that was in him which they did not see. We must realize that there was in his humanity another difference from ours. Through that humanity in every word, in every look, in every thing that he expressed, shone something divine. For his was the humanity of Immanuel, God with us, God manifest in the flesh. The Godhead was always visible through that humanity. There was in everything he said, divine wisdom. There was in everything he thought, divine purity and excellence.

So the character of Jesus had in it divine as well as human traits. But yet the character of Jesus is a different thing from the nature of Jesus, his divine human nature. All these things should not be too difficult to understand. But it was Israel's ignorance of these things that caused them to reject him. When all the righteousness which Jesus Christ was and the righteousness which he performed was presented to Israel as being what is called here God's righteousness, they rejected it. Think of all that can be seen in that phrase: God's righteousness. A righteousness prepared by God, a righteousness that God in the gospel holds as it were in his hand and presents to each of his believing people. In every sense it is the righteousness of God. Christ was presented to his people as the Lord our righteousness, the righteousness of every believing Israelite and after his death the righteousness of every believing Gentile.

We read in Isaiah, "In the Lord shall all the seed of Israel be justified and shall glory." But they spurned him. They were going about to establish a righteousness of their own and refused to submit themselves. And here perhaps is the core of all rejection: men do not want to submit. The Greek word for submit is found 39 times in the New Testament and is translated in ways which show its inner meaning of bringing the whole being into subjection to Christ, even as all things shall one day be brought into subjection to him. Men say they cannot believe. God says that they will not believe. The root meaning of surrender is to hand over oneself.

Let us make this personal application. For there is no good in trying to find the meaning of the Bible for people who lived 2,000 years ago if we do not bring its application to ourselves in this century. If we are not to be ignorant of God's righteousness, if we are to turn away from any attempt to establish our own righteousness, we must come to the place where we submit ourselves to the righteousness of God as it is seen in the lowliness of the Lord Jesus Christ, as it is seen in the crushing and scorching of his humanity in suffering, and as it is seen on the cross displaying the grace of God which makes it possible for that righteousness to be given to us today.

And Lord our God, we pray thee that our zeal may be with knowledge and that we may not work towards the establishment of our own righteousness but, turning away from it, commit ourselves to the Lord Jesus in a full commitment and to him alone. We ask in the name and for the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.

Guest (Male): Have you submitted to the righteousness of God and his way of salvation and trusted in the Lord Jesus Christ for eternal life? You have been listening to Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible, a ministry of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals. We hope you've benefited from today's message entitled Christ, Our Righteousness. To listen to more Bible teaching by Dr. Barnhouse, visit our website at alliancenet.org. An audio copy of today's teaching is also available by calling toll-free 1-800-488-1888. Today's message again is entitled Christ, Our Righteousness, or simply request message number R10-3.

We would also like to make available to you our free booklet entitled Death is Swallowed Up in Victory. In this four-chapter booklet, Dr. Barnhouse answers such questions as: what happens the moment you die? Where are the dead right now? Is there such a thing as soul sleep? These and many other questions on the subject of death are treated with profound biblical insight. Are you grieving the loss of a loved one or struggling with the issue of death? Ask for your free copy of Death is Swallowed Up in Victory when you call or write.

Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible is a radio ministry of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals, headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. We exist to promote a biblical understanding and worldview. Drawing upon the insight and wisdom of reformation theologians from decades and even centuries gone by, we seek to provide contemporary Christian teaching which will equip believers to understand and meet the challenges and opportunities of our time and place.

The Alliance also produces the radio broadcast The Bible Study Hour, featuring the teaching of the late Dr. James Montgomery Boice, and Every Last Word, featuring the Bible teaching of Dr. Philip Graham Ryken. For a complete list of radio stations carrying our programs, please visit our website at alliancenet.org. Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible comes to you through the generous gifts of listeners like you. If you have benefited from the broadcast and would like it to continue, please prayerfully consider a donation to help us keep this ministry on the air.

For more information or to make a contribution to help further our work, contact us by calling toll-free 1-800-488-1888. Again, that's 1-800-488-1888. You can also write us at Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals, Box 2000, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19103. Visit us online at alliancenet.org. Be sure to ask for a free resource catalog featuring books, audio teachings, commentaries, booklets, videos, and a wealth of other materials from outstanding reformed teachers and theologians, including Donald Grey Barnhouse, Dr. James Montgomery Boice, Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, and Dr. Philip Graham Ryken. Thank you for listening and please join us again for more classic teaching on Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible.