Ron Dunn Podcast - The Guts of the Gospel

Episode Date: July 23, 2025

In this message, Ron tackles a profound question at the heart of the Gospel: How can a holy and just God declare guilty sinners righteous? Join us as he unpacks the powerful truth behind God’s justice and grace.

Whom God has set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are passed through the forbearance of God, to declare, I say, at this time, his righteousness that he might be just and the justifier of them which believeth in Jesus. Now, I have written now to the margin of my Bible that verse 25 is the guts of the gossip. And I imagine that is just a little bit true, but that's exactly the way I want to say it because it has exactly the force and the punch that I won't behind it. Verse 25 is the guts of the gospel. That's it. It's the very heart of it. And if a person doesn't understand this, he doesn't understand anything.

whom God has set forth Jesus Christ to be the propitiation through faith in his blood to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past to the forbearance of God to declare, I say at this time, his righteousness that he might be just and the justifier of them which believe in Jesus. Now there's a question that I want to close to you and then we're going to answer this question. It is the question, how can God be just

and still justify sinners? How can a holy God look upon an unholy man and treat him as though he had never sinned? For you see, if God is holy, and if God is righteous, and if God is just, then he cannot merely overlook sin, can he? Can he excuse sin? You mean to tell me that all God has to do is say, all right, friend, your sins are forgiven. I treat you now.

I look upon you as though you had never sinned. How in the world can God do that? because, you see, if God does not demand and extract punishment and penalty for that sin, he violates his justice. What would you think of a judge who would have a criminal brought before him? The sentence has been brought in. This man is guilty of murder, and the judge that I justify you. I look upon you as though you have never sinned.

you are acquitted, not guilty, free, you're free to go. We would rise up in indignation because we would say that the justice, the law, has been violated. And if God simply pronounces man to be as though he had never sin without demanding and extracting punishment and penalty, his law and his justice is violated. But on the other hand, this is God's dilemma. On the other hand, if God condemns the sinner and sentences him to an eternal hell, his love is frustrated.

Either his law is going to be violated or his love is going to be frustrated. One of the two, how is it that God then can be just and remain righteous and at the same time treat you and treat me as though we had never sinned? You know what I've had people say to me when I have thought. presented to them the way of salvation, they said, that's too easy. There has to be more to it than that. That's too easy. And you're right, it is too easy, and there is more to it than that.

Sometimes we have the idea that God might be able to forgive us of our sins if, first of all, he punished us for our sins. And you know, this is one of the most difficult things for lost people to understand. You mean to tell me that all of these sins I've committed? it, all of these impure acts and thoughts, this hatred, this malice, this envy, this drunkenness, this lying, this stealing, all of this sin that I've committed against God, God just blots it out and forgets about it and treats me as though it never happened. That's right, that's exactly it.

Sometimes we say, well, it just can't be that easy, and so we try to do penance, you know. We try to help God out. Somehow we feel, I believe God would forgive me if he'd just punish me a little bit. But here's exactly what God does. looks at the guilty center. He's already said in verse 19 that the whole world is guilty before God. You have no defense and there's no excuse. The whole world is guilty before God. And yet that he turns right around in the next verse and says, he justifies you. He treats you as though you were not guilty even as though you had never committed a single sin. How does he do that? Verse 25 tells us

how he does it. Whom God has set forth to be the propitiations through faith in his blood. Now, there are three words I want you to underscore in that 25th verse. And I'm going to comment on each one of those verses and pray the Holy Spirit will open our eyes this morning to see how God can at once be just and at the same time justify me.

Undescore the word propitiation, underscore the word blood, underscore the word faith. First of all, propitiation. God has set him forth. God has publicly set Jesus Christ to be what? To be a propitiation. That word propitiation means to placate, to pacify, to appease.

Someone has been offended. Someone is angry. That one who has been offended must be pacified. He must be placated. He must be appeased. His wrath must be a burden. The word propitiate means to cover. It means to cover, to shield off from something like an umbrella.

Do you know what an umbrella is? An umbrella is a propitiation. That's what an umbrella is. Every time it rains, you need a propitiation. You need something to ward off the rain. You need something to cover you from that rain. And so you get an umbrella and you push it up and you have propitiated yourself. You have covered yourself from the rain.

Now one has been offended. God. And God is angry. That's right. The Bible says God is angry all the day with the wicked. He says even the plowing of the wicked is an abomination to God. You know, that's a hard verse to understand once in a while. You mean here's a lost man out yonder and all he's doing is plowing his field. He's just a farmer and he's just plowing his field. And yet God says that that man when he plows his field, even the very plowing of that lost man is an abomination to God. That's right. And when you stand behind that desk and clerk in that store, you're selling as an abomination to God. When you stand in that classroom and you teach those people reading and writing in arithmetic,

your teaching as an abomination to God. If you're a truck driver as you drive down the highway, you're driving as an abomination to God. because we have offended God by the choice of our sinfulness and we have rebelled against them and everything we are and everything we do is an abomination to God he is angry with the sinner all the day long it does make a difference to God how you and I behave ourselves there has been an offense

there is one who is offended there must be some way to appease God's anger and God's wrath Some of us think we can do it, but joining the church and being baptized and turning over a new leaf and going to the priest and going to the preacher and confessing our sins and doing penance and lighting candles and doing a thousand of the things we think somehow we're going to appease the wrath of God. No, sir, you cannot do it. There is no possibility of any of us appeasing God's wrath, of propitiating God. There's only one who can do it.

And so the Bible says God has sent forth his son to the Lord. be what, a propitiation. God is going to be appeased. How is his anger? How is his wrath going to be appeased? I cannot do it. So Jesus Christ has come into the world to do it. Jesus Christ has become my umbrella.

Jesus Christ has become my covering. And he stands between me and the wrath of God. And when God pours out his wrath upon my sin, it doesn't touch me, it doesn't hit me because in between myself and God is Jesus Christ. God has set

him for to be the propitiation for our sins. The reason Jesus came into this world was so that he might appease the wrath of God on your behalf. Well, how does he do that? He does it through his blood. He does it through his blood, whom God has sent for to be a propitiation through faith in his blood. A fellow said to me one day,

it can't be that easy my just asking Jesus Christ to save me and if I ask you mean to tell me if I ask Jesus Christ to save me suddenly he blocks out my sins and he treats my sins as though

they were never in existence I said that's right he said it can't be that easy it can't be that easy and he's right it's not that easy now on the manward side it is that's all I have to do

but on the Godward side it's not that easy you see God cannot forgive sin with just a word when God wanted to create the heavens and the earth, all he had to do is speak a word. I love to read. I never get tired of reading the first three chapters of Genesis when it tells how God created. I was, you know, God never perspires, God never gets anxious, God never frets.

God never extends energy. All God has to do is just think and it exists. God just thinks world and there's a world. God just thinks oceans and they're oceans. God thinks man and there's man. Just a word, just a thought, power, create his power. God said, let there be light and there was life. Let dry land appear and it appeared.

When God wanted to create the world, he just had to speak a word. But when God wanted to redeem the world and justify the world, he couldn't do it with a word. some of us think that that's all God did when I asked him as a junior boy to forgive my sins and save me sometimes we have the idea all God did was say okay it's done but God can't save the world just with a word the only way he can do it is with blood now I'm going to make a statement

I wish you to write the statement down or remember it because this statement is the guts of the gospel God has never had any other way of dealing with sinful man than by the blood. God has never had any other way of dealing with sinful man than by the blood. The Bible says in the book of Hebrews chapter 9 without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness. You say there must be more to it. than I merely asking him to forgive me and him forgiving you. That's right.

Without the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sins, and God has never, has never dealt with sinned apart from the blood. Back yonder the Garden of Eden when our first parents sinned, and they tried to cover up their sin with fig leaves. Remember the Bible says that God came and God took off the fig leaves, and God did what? God covered them. God covered them.

And that same Hebrew word is this word propitious. God covered them with the skins of animals. He had to shed blood right there in the garden. Why did not God leave that covering of fig leaves on Adam and Eve? Because without the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sins. God has never had any other way of dealing with man apart from the blood. And so there in the Garden of Eden, the first animal died. God slew an animal and shed blood and covered them with the skins of animals.

And the world just kept getting worse and worse. Abel was born and Cain was born. And the first act of recorded worship in the Bible, the first time it's ever recorded in the Bible that anybody worshiped God, there was bloodshed. Abel brought his sacrifice to God and shed blood. Kane was rejected because he was a farmer, and he brought some beans and potatoes and corn,

brought his gift to the Lord without the shedding of blood. there is no forgiveness, and God will not deal with man apart from the blood. That's why God rejected Cain's sacrifice because it was a bloodless sacrifice. God accepted Abel because he brought blood. God has never had any other way of dealing with sinful men apart from the blood. Well, the world just kept getting worse and worse and worse, and so God saved Noah and his family and destroyed the world with a flood of waters. Knowing his family stepped out after 40 days and 40 nights onto a new one,

a new race, a new humanity. You know the first thing Noah did when he stepped foot on dry ground? Do you know the first thing he did? He offered a sacrifice to God because without the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sins. God came along one day and picked up Abraham and said, Abraham, I'm going to make of you a great nation,

and through your seed, through your seed, I'm going to send the savior of the world, and he's going to save the world. And I make a covenant with you, but that covenant had to be sealed with blood and on the mountain Abraham started to offer Isaac and in his place God placed around and there had to be bloodshed without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sins and all the way through the Old Testament every time those people went into worship God

first of all blood had to be shed before that high priest could approach the holy of holies blood had to be shed it's kind of like this pulpit let's do it this way let's suppose that your pastor's a high priest and this Pope is the Holy of Holies. If I were to step up here this morning and approach this place without, first of all, having the blood of a lamb sprinkled on my clothes and without, first of all, having blood in a basin and without, first of all, having blood sprinkled on that altar, God would kill me as I approached this place

because that's where God dwells. Every time anyone came into the presence of God, they had to come with shed blood, and if they came without blood, God would kill them because without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness and God has never had any other way of dealing with man apart from the blood he say well that's Old Testament that bloody gospel over in the Old Testament but you've come to the New Testament and when John the Baptist in the gospel of John saw Jesus coming

he pointed everybody to Jesus and he said behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world he is the Lamb of God in John chapter 6 four times Jesus said unless you drank my blood, you have no life in you. Unless you partake of my blood, you have no life in you. Matthew chapter 28 when Jesus was giving the last supper before he went to the cross, he took the cup and he said, this cup represents my blood, which is shed for many for the remission of sins. In Romans chapter 3, we went in a moment ago that we must have faith in his blood if we're going to be saved.

Romans chapter 5, it says, therefore being justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath to come. In Hebrews chapter 9 it says not the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood, he entered into the holy place and obtained eternal redemption for us. In Hebrews chapter 7 it says, therefore having bonus to come into the presence of God by his blood. You cannot come into the presence of God apart from his blood. In Ephesians chapter 1 it says in whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins.

In Colossians 1.14, it says the same thing, in whom we have redemption through His blood, even the forgiveness of sins. In Ephesians chapter 2, it says those of you who are once far off from God are now brought nigh by the blood of Christ. In 1st Peter chapter 1 in verse 18, it says, For you were not redeemed with corruptible things such as silver and gold, but with the precious blood of Christ as a lamb slain without spot and without blemish. I turn over to John chapter 1, 1 John chapter 1 in verse 7 and it says in the blood of Jesus

Christ cleanses us from all sin. And then I come to that last book in Revelation chapter 1 in verse 5. It says unto him who loved us and washed us in his own blood. To him be glory and dominion forever and ever amen. And over in Revelation chapter 5 it gives us a glimpse of what the choir is going to be singing in heaven. And this is the song that we sing in heaven, thou wert worthy, worthy is the Lamb, for thou hast redeemed us unto God by by blood. Without the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sins. You say, well, why in the world does God require blood? Why does blood have to be shed? Because God said in Leviticus 14, the life of all flesh is in the blood. The life of all flesh is in the blood. The life of all

flesh is in the blood. I stand this morning as a guilty sinner, condemned before God. I have no excuse for my sin. There's no defense for my sin. I stand in his presence condemned by an angry and rattle God because of my sin. Life, my life must be forfeited. The soul that sin of it shall die. When you sin against God, my friend, you forfeit your life. It cost you your life. The wages of sin is dead. God's law cannot be violent. life must be given. The punishment must be carried out. So Jesus Christ comes, and he says,

just as everybody became sinners in Adam, I'm the last Adam, and I can make everybody righteous. And he says, I will go to the earth. I'll live there for 30 years. I'll keep the law. I'll live a sinless life, and I'll die on the cross, and I'll take all the world's sins, every sin I've ever committed, every sin I ever will commit,

and I'll take them into myself. I'll spill my blood. I'll pour out my blood. I'll give my life and sacrifice for all of the world are to peace and satisfy the righteous wrath of God. And when Jesus died upon that cross, he was taking my punishment, he was taking my whipping, he was taking my guilt, he was taking my sin without the shedding of blood, there is no remission. I don't have to worry about my sins. I don't understand. I want you to know sometimes the devil tries to accuse me of past sins.

Any of you ever have that trouble? Anybody here this morning ever worry about the sins you've already asked God forgiveness? I want to tell you something, God never bothers you. God never nags you with sins. He's already forgiven. I'll tell you who does, and that's the devil. The devil will come to you and he'll bring up that past life that you lived before you were saved. He'll bring up every sin you've ever committed and you'll say,

you know you can't be right with God. Look at all these things you've done. Oh, the devil is the accuser. He's the accuser. I sometimes picture myself standing in the presence of God. Before that court of heaven, there's old Satan, the accuser, that old dragon, the serpent, and he stands before God, and he has the account of Ronald Dunn, one born 1936, born again,

at the age of 9, 1945, in Fort Smith, Arkansas. all. And Satan says, God, I want you to see this fellow here that you've saved. I want you to see all that he's done since you saved him. And he begins to read off the list, the lying, stealing, the cheating, everything, the whole black list. And he reads it off, and he reads it off, and there's more, and there's more ever since. I've been saved than I did before I was saved. And the devil just keeps on accusing me in the presence of God. I'm finished and he shuts his book and he looks at me and he says, all right, what have you got to say? I'll tell you nothing I can say.

Everything the devil said about me is true. Everything Satan said about me is true. And I stand before the judgment bar of God, all of my sins, all of my wickedness there. All of a sudden, one stands up in the galleries of heaven, and there's a holy hush in the presence of the angels, and here he comes. And his countenance is bathed in blood, and all heaven thrills to the spectacle. And this one stands before the Heavenly Father. And he says, Heavenly Father, when I died on the cross, I took this fellow with me. And my blood covers his sin.

And by every tear that I shed on the cross, and by every groan that came from my mouth, by every drop of blood that I shed for him, I beg of you, Father, to forgive him and release him. Not for his sake, but for my sake. Look at the nail prints in my hand, and I beg you, Father, because the nail prints in my hand, let him go. Look at the side where the spear was driven through, and I beg you, let him go because of that. Look at my feet, and you see where the spikes were driven through, and I beg you, Father, release him. forgiving because of the spikes in my feet. And the

verdict of heaven comes clear ringing through to my heart. And this is the verdict. It says, there is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus. He's my advocate.

Oh, I don't understand that. I honestly confess I don't understand that, but, brother, I believe it. And I'm thankful for him. He is blood was shed for my sin. I don't have to be punished for my sins. I don't have to do penance for my sins. Jesus took all of that for me. Now there's one more word, and it's the word faith. It's the word faith. All of this has made effective by faith, whom God has set forward to be

a propitiation-proof faith in his blood. Some of us this morning have faith in our efforts to please God and appease God. No, you must have faith in His blood. You come to that place where you recognize that I deserve to be lost forever. Yes, I deserve to go to hell. How am I going to escape the punishment of God? And the gospel story comes that Jesus died in my place

and his blood was shed, his life poured out in the place of my life. And so I say, Lord, I accept that. I believe that I have faith in his blood. take Jesus Christ this morning. It has to be made effective by faith. Some of you've heard of William Calper, great

poet and hymn writer. He was under conviction. He tried numerous ways to find peace with God, but he just couldn't do it. One day, he was walking back and forth in his room, pacing, back and forth, conviction, deep, and agony

of soul. He was frustrated and at the point of breaking because he couldn't find any way that he could have peace with God. Finally, he just flopped down in the chair beside the window, so exhausted because of the fretfulness and frustration in his heart because of his sin. And there happened to be a Bible sitting on the window seal. And he just happened to open it.

And it just happened to open. I typed down his testimony. He said the passage which met my eye was the 25th verse of the third judge. chapter of Romans. On reading it, I received immediate power to believe. The rays of the Son of righteousness fell on me and all their fullness. I saw the complete sufficiency of the expiation which Christ had wrought for my pardon and entire justification. In an instant, I believe and receive the peace of the gospel. If the arm of the Almighty God had not supported me, I believe I should have been overwhelmed with gratitude

and joy. My eyes filled with tears. Transports choke my utterance. I could only look to heaven in silent fear overflowing with love and wonder. And he wrote a great hymn. Anybody know what him he wrote? There is a

fountain filled with blood. Draw from manual's veins and sinners plunge beneath that flood lose all their guilty stains. The dying thief rejoiced to see that fountain in his day. And there may I, though, vile as he wash all my guilt away

no wonder he wrote that faith in his blood I'll say there is glad release for you this morning Isaac Watts wrote another one he said not all the blood of beast on Jewish altars slain

could give the guilty conscience peace nor wash away my stain but Christ the heavenly lamb takes all my sin away, a sacrifice of noberlain and richer blood than they. I place my hand on that meek head of thine, while as a repentant I stand and there confess my sin. Believing, I rejoice to feel the curse removed and trust the lamb and his blood with cheerful voice. God has set him forth to be the covering for my sin.

It's made effective when I have faith in his blood. Without the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sins. You know the difference between your religion and my religion? Your religion is a religion of do, DO. this, do that, somehow try to please God, somehow try to find peace. Do, do, do.

My religion is religion of done, D-O-N-E. It's already been done for me. It's already been done. When Jesus died on the cross, he cried out. It is

finished. Friend, there's not a thing you add to that, all you can do is accept it. That's all you can do.