Dial In with Jonny Ardavanis - The King who came to die

Episode Date: December 22, 2022

In the final episode of this advent series, Jonny Ardavanis looks to the prophecy regarding the Messiah who would be our sacrificial lamb. If were to ask: “Why did Jesus come?” The answer of scripture would be: He came to die. Celebrating the Christ of Christmas is dependent upon our consideration and contemplation of why we needed Him to come in the first place. The King who was born and laid in a manger was the final lamb “who would take away the sins of the world.”Watch VideosVisit the Website Follow on InstagramFollow on Twitter

Hey guys, my name is Johnny Artivanis and this is Dial In. I wanted to wish you all a Merry Christmas and thank you for listening to the show. It's so cool to see how the Lord is using the Dial In podcast all around the world. And this episode will conclude our mini-series on Advent and be looking at the prophecies regarding the coming of Christ. Let's dial in. In one of the Christmas carols that we love, Hark the Herald Angels Sing, we sing these words, Peace on earth and mercy mild, God and sinners reconciled. These words, often sung but rarely contemplated, speak to the reason for why the Christ of Christmas was born,

to reconcile sinners to a holy God. As we conclude this mini-Advent series, we are compelled to consider the reasoning for why Christ came in the first place. Of course, I have already discussed in the previous episode that Jesus came to be the long-awaited King, and he came to be the better tabernacle, as we saw in our previous episode, and he would dwell amongst his people. But in order for him to be the king that he claimed to be and to provide us with access to the Father, he had to be something else. He had to be a sacrifice. Now, to us, the word sacrifice means next to nothing. People on diets say they have to sacrifice the consumption of soda in order to lose a few LBs, or others may employ the same

term because they sacrifice some of their time and money. But biblically speaking, sacrifice always entails something much more serious than that. Sacrifice involved the wailing of an animal as it was slaughtered on an altar as a reminder of God's holiness, God's justice, man's sin, and yet God's love in providing a system by which the sinner can live and have fellowship with God. Sacrifice always entailed the shedding of blood. As we previously examined, Adam and Eve's sin ushered in brokenness and death for all mankind. The reasoning for the way things are is because of what happens on page three of your Bible. Now in Genesis 3, the same account where a seed is promised, there is this dramatic event

of God's covering of the nakedness of Adam and Eve with the skins of animals. Now up until this point, there had been no death. So the question is, from where do these animal skins come from? Well, they come from the first sacrificial death. God himself functioned as the first priest and offered the first sacrifice and covered Adam and Eve with the skins of that animal that died in their place, that died as their substitute. Now, in order to understand the scripture, one must understand the nature of the word I just used, substitute. That is someone, something that stands in our place and receives the punishment that we deserve. For centuries, God taught his people a lesson

in capital letters, don't miss this. There is no reconciliation with God apart from blood, either the blood of the sinner or the blood of an innocent substitute. Throughout the rest of scripture, we realize that this sacrifice that takes place in the garden is only the first of many that function as a foreshadowing of something or someone that would be our sacrifice once and for all.

In Genesis 12, God comes to a childless man named Abram, whose name means exalted father, and tells Abram that through him, all the nations of the earth will be blessed. Remember, we talked about this in the first episode of the series. God tells Abram in Genesis 15, kings will come from you. The problem is this exalted father, as his name means, isn't a father at all. He's childless. His wife is barren, and they are both in their 70s. God makes this promise to Abram that he will be the father of a great nation. God tells him that he will have more descendants than the stars in the sky. But do you know how many years later this promise was

fulfilled? 25 years later. For 25 years, Abram, whose name would be changed to Abraham, which means father of multitudes, he would wait for God to fulfill the promise he made. And at a hundred years old, he has a son named Isaac. Can you imagine the joy, gratitude, and absolute shock of bearing a son at 100? Finally, the means by which God would bless the entire earth and the son through which God would make Abraham the father of a great nation had arrived. Well, in Genesis 22, we find herself in the midst of a scene where a sacrifice has to be made for Abram and his family. Why? Because of sin. We've covered this. So God commanded Abraham to take his one and only son up Mount Moriah and offer Isaac as a sacrifice. So Abraham and his son left the servants and the donkeys at the bottom of the mountain.

They climbed their way to the top, Isaac unknowingly carrying the very wood that he would be sacrificed upon. By the time they reached the top, Isaac would ask his dad, where's the sacrifice? And Abraham's only response was, son, God will provide. Abraham built the altar and said, son, get up there on that altar. And Abraham bound his one and only son, knife in his hand, tears in his eyes, pain in his heart. But Hebrews tells us never wavering in his faith in God. And as Abraham lifted the knife and started to bring it down upon his one and only son, God said, stop, I will provide a lamb, a substitute. And there was a ram caught in the bushes. God had provided them with a ram that would be sacrificed as a substitute. The ram would die. So Isaac didn't have to. We will return to

the story at the end. But for now, we are reminded of this profound theme running throughout the scripture. Life is only possible to those who rely on the death of a substitute. This would have been ingrained in the minds of God's people. The most celebrated feast in Judaism was that of the Passover, inaugurated in Exodus 12, where the people of God were required to spread the blood of an innocent lamb over their doorpost. The Passover is literally the celebration in the account of the Exodus where God's wrath would pass over those who are covered by the blood of the lamb. This feast would take place every year for thousands of years because the great feast amongst God's people serve as probing reminders. God's wrath has to be poured out either on the sinner or on an innocent substitute. God

would deliver his people out of Egypt, but he didn't want to dwell over them as we covered in our previous episode, but amongst them. But the only way the tabernacle, God's place of dwelling, could become a place of meeting is if sin is covered. The sacrificial system in the Old Testament, especially in the book of Leviticus, was this visible drama playing out in front of the eyes of the people of God, that atonement is only possible through the blood of a substitute. Atonement scripturally means two things. It means delivery from death and purification from pollution. For years on end, the people of God were required to bring an innocent lamb, and this lamb was inspected and verified to ensure that it was blameless. Each and every time a sacrifice was offered, an answer was

being provided to East of Eden's question, who can approach a holy God? Well, only the blameless. As God searches and probes our hearts, the priest who was responsible for mediating between God and his people searched and examined the substitution applicants to ensure that they were without blemish. After the animal had been presented to the priest for inspection, the worshiper would be required to literally lay their hands on the substitute's neck and press down upon it, meaning that the animal's throat would be slit, and then they would lean on the neck. They did this for three reasons. One, to ensure that there would be maximum drainage of blood. The people of God understood something, and you need to understand this as well.

The blood of the substitute functioned as a detergent to cover the sin. Imagine being a dad and telling your son, put your hands there and feel the life, feel the blood drain out of the body of this innocent lamb. Why, dad? Why? Because God hates sin, but in his love, he has provided another way. Secondly, in leaning upon this animal, it was a confession of sin. As you leaned upon the animal, you were essentially saying,

I am guilty in the sight of God. I put my hands upon this lamb or goat which is about to die, and if they do so, it was symbolizing that I need to be forgiven. Thirdly, it was a symbol of full reliance upon the substitute. It was a physical demonstration of an internal understanding that this animal is taking my place for what I deserve. And only because God accepts a substitute, can I live. And as they laid their hands on the head of this animal, it signified one other thing, and that is the element of transference or imputation, that the sin of the sinner was being transferred over to the innocent lamb, and then God would

pour out his wrath on the lamb. Sin cannot be in two places at once, so if it was transferred to the substitute, it would no longer reside on the sinner. Imagine the kid who puts his hands on the neck of an innocent lamb and asks their father, dad, why? Dad, why? And the father would respond, because of our sin, son, because of our sin. Thank God for this substitute. And these sacrifices, there's so much we could say here, and I could go on and on. But these sacrifices would happen over and over and over again. Next sacrifice, the son would ask their father, Dad, is it finished? And the father would respond, not finished.

Next year, Dad, is it finished? Dad, is it finished? It's not finished. It's not finished. More sacrifices need to be made. And as soon as one sacrifice was offered, another one would be due because the second that the sinner walked away from the altar of sacrifice, they would prove who they are in their DNA, a sinner, and another sacrifice would be needed. God's wrath would be

poured out on the lamb and the sinner would live. God's wrath would be poured out on the lamb and the sinner would live. This would happen over and over again. And the insufficiency of the system left the people of God. And it leaves us today with a hunger for something better. The Hebrew title for the greatest day of sacrifice, which would happen one day a year is Yom Kippur. And Kippur means literally to cover. This is a fitting title, knowing that all we have discussed thus far doesn't remove sin, but merely as we saw in the garden, it just covers sin. This is what the author of Hebrews states explicitly, that the blood of goats and rams can never remove sin. The prophet Isaiah would prophesy of one who would come and be pierced through for our transgressions and

crushed for our iniquities and the punishment for our peace would fall upon him. Isaiah 53 says that all of us like sheep have gone astray. Each of us has turned our own way, but the Lord has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on him, not a lamb, but a person. Isaiah prophesies of a coming lamb, one that would come and fully and finally remove sin, who would bear the crushing blow of punishment we deserve and drink the full cup of God's wrath for sin. Isaiah prophesies of this final lamb. The sacrifices in the Old Testament were never finished, but Jesus shows up on the scene and John the Baptist refers to him as what? The lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Nearly 1700 years and 42 generations after Abraham, another one and only son would march up the same mountain near Mount Moriah, bearing on his back

wood, but not for an altar of sacrifice, but wood for a cross that he would be crucified upon. And this time God would not stop the knife. There was no other ram caught in the thicket. The priest who came to mediate between God and man came and he offered the perfect and final sacrifice. He offered himself. Priests in the Old Testament were essentially butchers who slaughtered animals incessantly, and every sacrifice was a further reminder that it was not finished. And when the final lamb of God bled and died on the cross, he said, it is finished. Not because his life was finished, but the sacrificial system was. In the hymn, In Christ Alone We Sing, till on the cross as Jesus died, the wrath of God

was satisfied, meaning that no more lambs are needed. And at the same time, all the other Passover lambs were being slaughtered. There on Calvary, the final lamb was killed for your sin, if you believe in him. We sing, lifted up was he to die. It was finished was his cry. Now in heaven, exalted high. Hallelujah. What a savior. On the cross of Calvary, there was the strongest sermon ever preached on the love of God. This Christmas, if you were to ask, why did Jesus come? Why was he born in the manger? Why did he come to the little town of Bethlehem? The answer is simple. He came to die. The lion of Judah came as a lamb. He came to live the life you could never live, die the death you could never die, and rise For this reason, he is the prince of peace. Do you have the peace that can come through only knowing him, Jesus Christ, as Savior?

I pray you do. Merry Christmas and stay dialed in.