Eric Bechler's sermon on 'Of Christ the Mediator' from the Second London Baptist Confession of 1689, focuses on Christ's role in redeeming His people through His perfect obedience and sacrifice. The sermon explores Christ's active and passive obedience, highlighting their necessity for satisfying God's justice and procuring reconciliation. The covenant of redemption between God the Father and God the Son is explained in relation to the covenant of works, which humanity failed to uphold. Christ's single, sufficient sacrifice is contrasted with the repeated sacrifices of Old Testament priests, emphasizing its eternal efficacy. The sermon also delves into particular atonement, explaining that Christ's death was intended to save His elect, not everyone universally, as supported by scripture. Ultimately, Christ's work achieves reconciliation with God and secures an everlasting inheritance in the kingdom of heaven for those given to Him by the Father.

Our reading this morning from the Second London Baptist Confession of 1689 comes from chapter 8 again of Christ the Mediator, paragraph 5. The Lord Jesus, by His perfect obedience and sacrifice of himself, which he through the eternal Spirit once offered up unto God, hath fully satisfied the justice of God, procured reconciliation, and purchased an everlasting inheritance in the kingdom of heaven for all those whom the Father hath given unto him." This morning we continue with chapter 8 of Christ the Mediator. Our paragraph this morning is fairly straightforward and focuses on Christ's success in redeeming his people by his perfect obedience and sacrifice. We'll touch on Christ's active and passive obedience here and a little bit on particular atonement. All of the sections of this paragraph point to Jesus's procuring reconciliation and purchasing an everlasting inheritance for his people.

We'll keep this point in mind as we go over each part. The Lord Jesus, by his perfect obedience and sacrifice of himself, By his perfect obedience and sacrifice, Jesus procured reconciliation and purchased an everlasting inheritance. How is this so? If we remember from the previous section on covenants in chapter 7, there was a covenant of works. The parties involved were God and man through Adam.

The condition was perfect obedience, and Adam was not able to keep this covenant. Thus entered death into the world. So we have a problem. We are not able to attain eternal life, we're stuck. We're separated from God.

And God the Father and God the Son, even before the world was created, entered into a covenant of redemption, whereby God the Son would become flesh and meet the conditions of the covenant of works, to become our mediator and surety. And through the covenant of grace we can, through faith in Christ, have eternal life. We turn to scripture to support this section, but by Jesus's obedience and sacrifice. We see in Romans 5, 18 through 19, therefore as by the offense of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation, even so by the righteousness of one, the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life. For as by one man's disobedience, many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous.

So by the obedience of one, that one is Jesus Christ, and that obedience was perfect obedience to all the law. And why did he do this? Because he loved us. Let's look at Paul's letter to the Ephesians, where he is telling them to imitate God in Ephesians 5, 2, and walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling savor. As Christ loved us, we should love one another.

We should walk in love. Perhaps you've heard of Christ's active and passive obedience, these phrases, and that both are necessary for the full satisfaction of God's justice. Theologians refer to the perfect obedience to the law of God as the active obedience of Christ. Through faith in Christ, his obedience is counted as our own. We are clothed in Christ's righteousness.

Theologians refer to Christ's passive obedience as the sacrifice of himself. It is termed passive because the sufferings came upon himself. He endured the wrath of God for our sins. What were these sufferings? Crucifixion and death.

He did this for our sake and for our justification. In the next part here we say, which he through the eternal spirit once offered up unto God. So there are a couple things here in this section. First, Jesus' sacrifice of himself which he, through the Spirit, once offered up. Hebrews tells us it is through the eternal Spirit that he does this.

In Hebrews 9, 14, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God. Purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God. Jesus is offering himself by his death as a sacrifice to God for the payments of debt for our sins. Again, we turn to Hebrews in 916, for where a testament is, there must also of necessity be the death of the testator. The other part of this to focus on is the word once.

In the Old Testament, the priests had to offer sacrifices continually. There were many priests over many years, and they offered many sacrifices. They first would offer sacrifices for their own sins, then they would offer sacrifices for the people. Over and over this would take place. But with Christ, there was only one sacrifice.

Only one sacrifice was needed. Only one. His death on the cross. Again, we turn to Hebrews to support this in Hebrews 10 14, for by one offering he hath perfected forever them that are sanctified. In Hebrews 10 10, by the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Christ Jesus once for all.

Moving on to the next section, hath fully satisfied the justice of God. What is justice? What is the justice of God? No Webster defines justice as the virtue which consists in giving to everyone what is his due. Thomas Watson states, God's justice is the rectitude of his nature whereby he is carried to the doing of that which is righteous and equal." Scripture speaks in many places about God's justice.

In Deuteronomy 32-4, he is the rock. His work is perfect, for all his ways are judgment. A God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is he. In Job 37, 23, touching the Almighty, we cannot find him out. He is excellent in power and in judgment, and in plenty of justice he will not afflict.

In Psalm 89, 14, justice and judgment are the habitation of thy throne. Mercy and truth shall go before thy face. And in Proverbs 24, 12, and shall not he render to every man according to his works." And in Christ's sacrifice, his death on the cross, God's justice is fully satisfied. To be more clear, what is the penalty for sin? Penalty is death.

And although our sins have been forgiven, they have not been forgotten and they were not set aside. God is a just God would require. He would demand that the punishment for each sin be paid without exception. This is just. And for the elect, our sins are imputed to Christ.

Being placed on him, he paid the price. He bore the punishment for those sins in our place. The punishment was given. God's justice was fully satisfied. From 1 John 4 10, herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins.

This is a picture of love. Continuing, the Lord Jesus procured reconciliation. No Webster defines procure as to get, or to cause, or to bring about. So Jesus brought about and He caused reconciliation by His perfect obedience and sacrifice. Jesus did this.

Just to be thorough, let's look quickly at the meaning of reconciliation so that we all understand that. The word reconciliation means appeasing, turning away anger, rending favorable. The implication there is that there is anger or wrath existing. We see that between God and man in his fallen state. There's something that has been done to offend man's sin against God, a holy God.

And the implication is that there is a need to turn away that wrath, to appease that wrath. And Jesus, by his perfect obedience and sacrifice, by his blood, by his death on the cross, reconciled us to God. He turned away God's wrath and we now have God's favor. We read from Paul's letter to the Corinthians and Colossians in 2 Corinthians 5, 18, and 19. And all things are of God who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation to it that God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself not imputing their trespasses unto them and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation." In Colossians 1.20-23, and having made peace through the blood of his cross by him to reconcile all things unto himself.

By him I say, whether they be things in earth or things in heaven, and you that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled in the body of his flesh through death to present you holy and unblameable and unreprovable in his sight, if ye continue in the faith grounded and settled, and be not moved away from the hope of the gospel which ye have heard, and which was preached to every creature which is under heaven, whereof I, Paul, am made a minister." So Jesus brought about reconciliation by His perfect obedience and sacrifice. And we read further, In purchased an everlasting inheritance in the kingdom of heaven for all those whom the Father hath given unto Him. When we use the word purchase, we have the sense of a payment, a cost, or a price. Noah Webster defines the word purchase in the common sense as to buy or obtain property by paying an equivalent in money. He also defines it in the primary and legal sense as to obtain or acquire by any means except by descent or hereditary right.

Thus, we get the idea that there must be a cost, there must be a price when we talk about a purchase. It can't be passed down or inherited, i.e. No cost. In this case, the cost was Christ's blood, his life. In Christ dying on the cross, he purchased an everlasting inheritance in the kingdom of heaven for those who the Father had given him.

He redeemed them, he redeemed us. Let us read from scripture for support of his eternal inheritance. In Hebrews 9, 15, and for this cause he is the mediator of the New Testament, that by means of death for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first testament, they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance. In Revelation 5, 9 through 10, and they sung a new song saying, thou art worthy to take the book and to open the seals thereof, for thou was slain and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred and tongue and people and nation, and has made us unto our God, kings and priests, and we shall reign on the earth." And briefly, scripture support for giving an eternal inheritance, eternal life to those whom the father has given him. We read from John 17 to as thou has given him power over all flesh that he should give eternal life to as many as thou has given him.

I found another verse on this topic that can cause some confusion, and it has caused confusion regarding who receives this eternal inheritance. If I look at 1 John 2, 22, it says, And he is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world. And so we have a dilemma here that creates a lot of discussion. There's a lot of different meanings when we use the term world throughout scripture. Context really helps us understand this more clearly.

I want to read something from Ligonier Ministries to talk about this just briefly. No discussion of the atonement of Jesus would be complete without a consideration of the intent and extent of the atonement. Here we are addressing the question, for whom did Christ die? Did he die to atone for the sins of all human beings who will ever live? Or did he die to atone only for the sins of a particular people, namely his people, the elect.

Traditionally, the concept of a particular atonement is known as limited atonement, and it is associated only with reformed theology. This association is regrettable because all true Christians must agree that the atonement is limited in some way. Experience and more important, the testimony of scripture tell us that not everyone will be saved. Some people refuse to believe in him and do not have their names written in the Lamb's Book of Life. We can see John 3.36 and Revelation 20.11 through 15 for that.

Essentially, there are only two ways in which the atonement can be limited. Either the atonement's power to save is limited because of its efficacy, is dependent on human response, or the intent and extent of Christ's death is limited to the elect. In the first case, which is the Arminian position, we have a potential atonement that does not actually redeem anyone, but must be combined with a human response to achieve saving power. In the second case, the reformed position, the atonement actually saves people, but not everyone. Here, our faith ultimately results from Christ paying for our sins.

We do not work it up in ourselves to make the cross effective. If the atonement's power is merely potential, as in the Armenians view, It had the potential to save no one. There was the possibility that no one would ever make a free will decision for Christ. But scripture never depicts a potential atonement. Jesus did not go to the cross to make salvation possible.

He was crucified to save a people for himself. As the Messiah, he knew that he would be satisfied because his sacrifice would really save some. The Bible says Christ came to save his people from their sins. God did not send his son to make it possible or to even probable that some would be saved. Instead his plan guaranteed the salvation of his elect.

Christ died for the sins of his people alone. He gave his life only for his sheep. I like that. I thought that was a good quick assessment on that. It's a big topic on particular atonement.

There's a lot out there. I found a treatise written by John Owen that I thought was pretty thorough, and there's just tons and tons more on that discussion. I hope this helped. And Again, the point of our paragraph this morning is, by Christ's perfect obedience and by His sacrifice, He procured reconciliation and purchased an everlasting inheritance for His people in the Kingdom of Heaven. Amen.