What could we say is the greatest display of God’s holiness that is found in our Bible? The burning bush, whereby Moses was told, “do not come near; take your sandals off your feet..” (Exodus 5:3)? Or Isaiah 6, where Isaiah he declared, “Woe is me!”? Or the Cross? Whereby the perfect Son of God bore the wrath of God to suffer the punishment that we justly deserved.
The greatest display of holiness is not the burning bush. The greatest display of holiness is not Isaiah Chapter six. No, sir. The greatest display of the holiness of God is a little hill outside the walls of Jerusalem, where they took our Lord and pinned him to a tree. There, where the sun refused to shine, it could not participate in the shameful acts of wicked man. As its creator was being put to death, and there in one moment, one excruciating, indescribable moment when the son of God, Jesus Christ, the eternal second person of the Godhead, and that man born of the virgin, is gripped with the absence of God’s presence. I remind you why he’s there. He’s there because of you. He’s experiencing the wrath of God, a holy God against your sin. And by his substitutionary death, you can be set free, set free, not only from the condemnation of guilt, but set free from sin. You can be delivered from sin right here, right now. God is a redeemer a deliverer of his people. He didn’t suffer the agonies of a holy and righteous God just to keep you out of hell. Oh, no. He’s a greater deliver that that he means to deliver you from sin. All of your sin, all of your filthiness, all of your idols, all of your iniquity (Ezekiel 36:25-27). He took upon himself. All of our iniquities was laid upon him, and look at him there. Look at him as the Father pours out the cup of holy wrath. And he drinks it all. So that God now could look at you and come to you and visit you without destroying you and say, come come away, my beloved, come. Behold, I stand at the door and knock. Oh, it’s not an evangelistic text. It is a text for the church and I think it’s an appropriate text for this hour.
This excerpt was taken from the full sermon, Surprised by Grace. This was preached at Sovereign Grace Community Church at a conference in Corpus Christi, Texas. Find the messages on their sermon. Audio page at sermonaudio.com/corpuschristians
