Brought Near By The Blood

0:16Thank you for listening to the Sermon Audio Podcast for Crossroads Bible Church in Rockdale, Texas. Crossroads Bible Church is a Reformed Confessional Baptist church that meets every Lord's Day at 10 a.m. for Bible study and 11 a.m. for corporate worship. For more information about our church and for directions, you can find us online at www.crbcrockdale.org. Grace and peace to you from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Good morning again. Turn with me, if you would, back to the book of Ephesians. In chapter 2, verses 11 to 13 is where we will be. This morning, for those who are taking notes and like to have that big theme or that big idea in your mind, it is this that our separation from Christ, though once real, has now been reconciled by his blood. Our separation from Christ, though once real, has now been reconciled by his blood. This is our theme this morning. But before we get to there, I do need to recap just a bit because it has been about four weeks now since we've been through the book of Ephesians. So let me remind you again of what Paul's emphasis was and is as he wrote this letter. And that emphasis is to encourage the Gentile Christians in their faith by making clear who God is, how it is that they came to be children of God, what it was that they were saved from, and then eventually we'll get to how is it that they are to live, but ultimately making clear who God is and how they came to be reconciled to him. In our previous weeks, we covered Paul's exposition of those first two chapters of who God is concerning his nature, concerning his will, specifically his will concerning salvation. How it is that these Ephesian Christians, and by extension, all of us, came to be saved. And I hope you took from those weeks that God, our God, is a loving, adopting, blessing, inheritance-giving God. And is a God who, for lack of a better phrase, gets things done. Or as Brother Stephen has often said, a God who always gets his man. He is not a passive loving, he is not a passive blessing kind of God, who has done some things and is now sitting by his phone like a lovesick teenager, hoping someone will call him. And because of that love, and because of that unmoving, eternal, unshakable character, he has, before the foundation of the world, fixed his gaze upon a particular and a peculiar people, and has providentially decreed all things that come to pass for the purpose of in the fullness of time to bring forth his son, secure the eternal redemption of those whom he foreknew and predestined. This is the emphasis in the first two chapters of Ephesians. And from that reality, then we bow ourselves at the feet of Christ, fully and completely at his mercy. It is by him, it is through him alone that we are saved and kept. It is by the Holy Spirit alone that we are given understanding of God's word, of God's will, and it is by that same Spirit that we are empowered to sanctification and godly living. In short, then, what Paul has taught us thus far, not just in these first chapters of Ephesians, but really in all of his letters, is that it is by the triune God alone that we are saved, and that salvation was only possible in and through the hope, death, burial, and resurrection of Christ Jesus our Lord. It is and always will be, as Paul said to the Greeks back in Acts chapter 17, it is the one true God and in Him alone that we live and move and have our being. This grace then and all the blessings and benefits that come from grace is a gift. Not of works, so that no man may boast. For it cannot be of works, for if it were, then grace would no longer be grace. That's Paul. You know that. So then and all of this then depends not upon the one who wills or upon the one who runs, but on God who shows mercy.

6:20That is also Paul.

6:27Okay, then we come to our text this morning where Paul shifts his focus then to remind these Gentiles who they were. He is reminding these Gentiles who they were in an effort to show them how far they have come. And to show them that with their union with Christ, now having been saved by Christ, this union is just as real and just as sure and just as tangible as the separation was from which they had been saved from. And that is, by the grace of God, we will look this morning at our passage. Stand with me.

7:14And let's read Ephesians 2, starting in verse 11.

7:24Therefore, remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, called the uncircumcision, by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands. Remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus, you who were once far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. This is the word of the Lord. Lord, we thank you for the blood of Christ. We thank you for your word. Thank you for the Spirit, Lord, that illuminates this word. By that Spirit alone, Lord, by your Spirit alone, would you give us understanding? Speak to us. We ask all these things in the name of Jesus.

8:14Amen.

8:20Okay, so we're gonna break this passage down then into three sections. Shocker, I know, three sections, but uh here we go. And the first of these sections, and there's three verses, so it works out very neatly in verse 11, is the fleshly distinctions made by Paul, or you can say the distinctions of the flesh. And this is verse 11. Therefore, remember at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, called the uncircumcision by what is called the circumcision which is made in the flesh by hand. When God established then his covenant with Abraham, we talked about this, to be a God to him and to his offspring, with the promise that through this offspring he would be the father of a multitude of nations. That's Genesis 17. If you want to write that down, go back and read it. But when God established that covenant with Abraham, he gave a sign. And circumcision was the God-appointed sign, it was the visible testimony of that covenant made with Abraham and his people. And this sign should have been taken with great humility, recognizing the extent of what that sign meant. That God had taken a man, Abraham, from a pagan nation, of whom there was nothing particularly special about him, and he promised to him an everlasting blessing through an offspring that would ultimately end with a multitude of nations inheriting a promised land and living once again in eternal communion with God. This is the promise. And if you think about that promise, it is nothing short of God promising through Abraham to himself do the thing that Adam didn't do. And that he, God, made the covenant promise that he indeed would do it through an offspring of Abraham. In time, though, and let me back up and say, that should make us eternally grateful. In time, though, that gratitude and that humility associated with that promise mutated into arrogance and pride. It mutated such that this fleshly distinction given as the sign of the covenant became the means by which all value and all worth and all dignity were attached. Certainly in the days of Jesus, as we clearly see noted here from Paul, everyone was basically divided into the so-called circumcision, as Paul says, and the uncircumcised.

11:33It was the Jews and the dogs. And as we are so prone to do, we distort something good.

11:48We distort something God-centered, and we use it as a means of pride and self-boasting. What was initially this sign of God's covenant faithfulness and his promise to keep his word and fulfill his promise turned for them into a symbol of personal pride. Not at all unlike God's covenant sign to Noah. And the bow in the sky, and it's morphed into a symbol of pride in sin and debauchery.

12:25Lord forgive us. We lose the substance of the sign and we distort it in our own image.

12:41And this is not a novel interpretation of verse 11, by the way. He's pointing out the sinful aspect of the fleshly distinctions that were made by the Jews. We can conclude this because of Paul's use, and you can see it there if you look in your text. Made in flesh by hands, he says, by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands. Actually, it was one of the texts we turned to in the Old Testament, it might have been that Psalm, or it might have, yeah, I was thinking it was in the Psalms. We looked at idols. And all throughout the Old Testament, idolatry and idols were those things fashioned, made by hands. So this is the language that Paul is using here, referencing idolatry. And Paul is not saying, as we'll see in just a minute, that there are no distinctions among men at all. But he is saying that there is an idolatrous way of making distinctions between people. That the distinctions that are made purely in the flesh is idolatry. And it misses the point because it misses what the aside that the sign was originally given to show. I need to prove that to you though. And I'm gonna do it in another text. And I do want you to turn here because I need you to see it. It's Galatians chapter 3. It's just a few pages backwards in your Bible.

14:23It's Galatians chapter 3 and verse 16. Galatians 3, chapter 16, and hear this word.

14:40Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring. It does not say, and to offsprings, referring to many, but referring to one and to your offspring, who is Christ. This is what I mean, the law which came 430 years afterward, does not annul a covenant previously ratified by God so as to make the promise void. We can skip down to verse 23, then. So what is the law then? Or what of the law, we say. Verse 23, then, I'm gonna go to verse 22. But the scripture imprisoned everything under sin, so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe. Now, before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed. So then the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian, for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God through faith. The point being there, that this sign of circumcision given to Abraham was not the final or ultimate distinction between God's people, those in the covenant and those out of the covenant. But rather that sign was a type. It was pointing to the fulfillment of God's promise to Abraham, which is Christ. His offspring. The offspring of Abraham was Christ the embodiment of God's promise. The sign of circumcision pointed to a greater fulfillment of God's covenant faithfulness, whereby he would release us from the prison of the law, and instead he would write that law on our hearts by faith. In the one, the offspring of Abraham, who would fulfill the law for us. That was made known to the Jews in the Old Testament, but they did not see it. What they were doing is still trusting in the type instead of the promise, the substance. We have this fleshly distinction, they would say. Look at us, we were born of the right people, we did the right things, surely we are God's people. But they missed it. They missed the fullness of what was meant in Deuteronomy 30, verse 6, and the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the hearts of your offspring, so that you will love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul that you may live. The emphasis then is that the only distinction that matters is not fleshly but one of faith, particularly faith in Christ. Practically, then, or by way of application, this is why I am compelled to still and continually be a Baptist. My beautiful and wonderful children, to the praise and glory of God, are his. And they are partakers of his covenant blessing, not because they were born to me, but because by faith they were reborn to Christ. You are God's not because of a birth in the flesh, not because of your obedience to the law. You are gods because your heart has been circumcised by him. And that promise by faith in Jesus Christ was given to those who believe. That's Galatians 3, verse 22. But read that again.

19:22That the promise was given, by faith in Jesus Christ was given to those who believe.

19:35So Paul calls them and us to remember the idolatrous and the sinful application of the sign perpetuated by the Jews. Not to dismiss the distinctions, but to call them to remember, to call us to remember the truth behind the sign of the covenant. The truth that God Himself has chosen a people according to His will. And He Himself has made promises to that people and that this people would come by faith and will be represented in a multitude of nations. This is the truth we are called to remember. Verse 12, then back in Ephesians. We must not forget, though, that there are real distinctions and separations. There are. Again, as I say, there was and has always been a people who are gods and a people who are not. Our postmodern mind, mixed with all its pluralism and liberalism, wants to act like God loves and has always loved every human being the same. Have you read Joshua? Entire cities and everyone in them were devoted to destruction. Have you heard of a man named Agag? We just read about him in 1 Samuel. I know our modern sensitivities. And in those modern sensitivities we gasp at such things. But it's here in the text. We either submit to it and we trust the Bible or we don't. There was a time then when these people to whom Paul is writing were separated from God. They were not his. And this presupposes then that there was and is those who are and those who aren't separated from God. Let's look then very quickly at the particulars of this separation in verse 12. The first of those is separated from Christ. John 14, verse 6, Christ says, I am the way, the truth, the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If one is not in union with Christ, that is joined to Christ by faith, he is separated from God. Christ himself then is the great unifier or the great separator, right? Do not believe, church. Do not believe when you hear that there are many roads to God, that the Muslims or the Hindus they also love God or love Gods in their own special way. Do not believe that one can reach heaven by some other means other than union with Christ. It's not true. If you are not connected to the vine, that is Christ, if you are not joined to Christ, you will wither, you will die, and you will be burned. Hear the word of the Lord that such were some all of you. Remember then, that you were at one time separated from Christ. You were no better off than the Muslim. You were no better off than the atheist or the citizen of Jericho that Joshua devoted to destruction. You were separated from Christ. Secondly, you were alienated from the commonwealth of Israel. That is, you were estranged from the community of fellowship of Israel. Who is Israel then? Romans 9, verse 6, for not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel, and not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring. But through Isaac shall your offspring be named. This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of promise who are counted as offspring. That supports what we previously talked about. Romans 2, verse 28. For no one is a Jew who is a mere one outwardly, nor is circumcision outward or physical. But a Jew is one inwardly. And circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the spirit, not by the letter. His praise is from man, is not from man, but from God. Again, that's Romans 2. I'll point out again then that outward circumcision, that's this was never the point, right? Never made us partakers of or sharers in the commonwealth of Israel. True Israel is those who are children of the promise. That is, those whose hearts have been circumcised by God according to his will, according to his promise. Those who are not, as you once were, have no communion or fellowship with God's people. That is to say, there is an invisible commonwealth. There is an invisible community of people who are united to Christ in eternal fellowship. That's the Catholic Church, the real Catholic Church. And you are at one time outside of that fellowship. Thirdly, our text says you were strangers to the covenants of promise. We've seen the word separated used. We saw the word alienated used, but this is a personal word speaking of one who is quite literally a foreigner, a stranger of. You had no claim to the promises of God. You had no citizenship in those promises. You were a foreigner of those things. They were foreign to you. You did not know them, you did not possess them, you had no rights to them. They were God's promises, and as a result, they were not yours.

27:07Fourthly, you had no hope.

27:13This is a point that Brother Gerardo made last week, and that is that without union with Christ, without communion in the body of Christ, without claim to these promises of God, we have no hope. We have no hope. Many use this word, and I have perhaps used it myself, the word hopeless, as though we know what the fullness of that word actually means, to be hopeless. I'd argue that far too many people who say that something is hopeless have really no idea what they're saying when they say that something is hopeless. We use it when something just seems too difficult, right? Or it's too complicated, that's hopeless. And often the thing really isn't hopeless, it's just outside of our present comprehension. But there does exist true hopelessness. There does exist a state and a circumstance in a life that is so difficult, that is so complex, that is so utterly beyond our control and comprehension that we could spend an eternity trying to work it out and we'll never figure it out. There is a state of a soul that is so separated from God that it is hopeless. And you were in that state. Where if you remained in that state and were given an eternity to work your way out of it, you would only find yourself deeper and deeper in despair. Like a man who is in a maze that is infinitely complex, with no help to get out. And the deeper he goes, the further and further he gets from ever escaping. This is a life separated without God, no hope.

29:09Finally, our text says that you were without God in the world.

29:16I can't help but think when we think of without God in the world, there is a connection drawn back to Eden, to paradise, of which the world is a contrast of paradise. I think the contrast shows up with Christ's words in John 17, his high priestly prayer. He says, I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Also, the words of Christ in John 15 if the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it has hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own, but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. There is then the world, which all have been exiled into and separated from God in. It is of the world where we find all the bitter fruits of that separation being without God. But it is from the world where we are plucked out by Christ and transferred or given access back into the eternal promised land, eternal Eden. Philippians 3 20 says, But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. So that is the summary of the true and actual distinctions that we must consider. Those are the important and the only important separations that exist. Not distinctions of the flesh, but those real and weighty distinctions of the spirit of the soul. Separated from Christ, alienated from the community of saints, strangers to the promise, without hope and without God in the world. Such were all of us at one time.

31:31There's always good news.

31:34Our final point then is that though we were once all those things, now in Christ, we who were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. There's much I could say about the good gospel news here. That it has brought us near and it has reconciled us back to God. And there are many, many things we could say about that. But I only want to emphasize this morning what the text emphasizes. What is it that is the means by which all of those things that were previously said are no longer true? What is it that has remedied our separation from Christ? What is it that has brought us into fellowship with God's people? What is it that has given us a claim to the covenant promises of God? What is it that has given us hope? What is it that has pulled us out of the world and into the heavenly kingdom with God?

32:50What is it? Nothing else but the blood of Christ.

32:58This is why those blessed doctrines of grace are so important to us. That we know and that we confess and that we believe that we are who we are, not because of birth. We are who we are, not because of our obedience, not because of our confession, not because we did the right things, not because we said the right things. We are who we are only because the precious blood of Christ was poured out for us. 1 Peter 1, verse 18, knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways that you inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as gold and silver, but with the precious blood of Christ, like a lamb without blemish or spot, he was foreknown before the foundation of the world, but was made manifest in the last times for your sake, who through him are believers in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory so that your faith and hope are in God.

34:08Where then is our faith and hope? It is in God.

34:15Because it was him, by him, and through him that we were purchased from our hopeless futility. It is by him, and through him we were given an eternal life and hope and peace. And the currency of that payment was not gold or silver. The currency of that payment was the blood of Christ. Do you see that then? That you too were separated from Christ, and you were so far separated that you were never gonna make it back. You were so far estranged from the communion of his people that you weren't gonna fit in. You were too different. You were too foreign to his promises to ever receive them. You were too hopeless and truly hopeless. You were in the world and without God. You were too indebted to ever repay him. But the blood of Christ solved everything. The precious blood that satisfied the wrath of God against our sins, that was sufficient to cover our sins. That precious blood that returns God's people not again to a state of neutrality, but to a state of spiritual righteousness, the very righteousness of Christ, so that when applied by faith, this cleansing flow truly does make us white as snow. His blood given for you, I say that every week. This is where our hope is found. Because it is only in the death and resurrection of Christ that we who were far off are now brought near. That we would take hold of that this morning. And every morning, that though we were far off, though we were separated from God, we have been brought near. Brought back to our gracious and loving God by that one man, God in flesh, Jesus Christ, and the shedding of his blood.

36:45Without that, there is no hope. But with that there is eternal life.

36:52So returning again then to where we began as Gentiles, as we all were, our separation from Christ and from the promises of God, though once real and it was, has now been reconciled by his blood. So I ask, what is that ground of your hope? What is the ground of your peace? In what and in who are you staking your eternal security?

37:28It must only be in Christ and his blood.

37:32It is only by him and through his death and through his resurrection, according to the eternal will and promise of the Father, that we have been saved and given eternal life. Do you trust in his blood as sufficient means to have purchased you? Do you trust that your sin, not in part, but the whole was nailed to the cross.

38:05And by his blood alone you bear it no more. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord, oh my God. Though we are once far off, it is by the precious blood that we have been brought near again.

38:26That alone we can truly sing and mean.

38:32It is well. It is well with my soul. We thank you this morning that by the blood of Christ alone it is well. We thank you for those words.

38:54Thank you for your word given to us to remind us of those sinful fleshly distinctions that we make, Lord, the pride that we take in and of ourselves. We confess that, Lord, to you. We repent of these things. Ask that you would break down our pride, that we would trust in Christ alone. But help us this morning to remember that we weren't we were once a people far off from you. We were once without hope, without God, in the world.

39:35But through the blood of Christ we have now been brought near. Not our works so that we may boast. But only your will. Only your grace. So Lord, please continue to break down our pride. Break down our arrogance.

39:59May we come each week and each day in full humility to you, trusting only in your grace, and only through the blood of Christ. It is in the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ that I pray.