The Cross and Libertinism

The title of my sermon is “The Cross and Libertinism.” These are ideas that have nothing in common. Yet in many modern churches, we find people speaking about the cross and living like libertines. But one cannot believe in the true gospel and in antinomian libertinism at the same time. The eternal God and Savior Jesus Christ died on the cross for our sins; therefore, the cross opposes sin.

The Purpose of the Cross

Today we are celebrating Palm Sunday, the day that inaugurated the last week of the life of Jesus Christ before his death on the cross. Joining with other pilgrims, Jesus Christ and his disciples set out from Galilee to go to Jerusalem for the Passover festival. But Jesus was not going to celebrate the festival and return to Galilee. He went as the Passover lamb to be slaughtered, that he may take away the sin of the world. He told his disciples about this in Mark 10:32-34:

They were on their way up to Jerusalem, with Jesus leading the way, and the disciples were astonished, while those who followed were afraid. Again he took the Twelve aside and told them what was going to happen to him. “We are going up to Jerusalem,” he said, “and the Son of Man will be betrayed to the chief priests and teachers of the law. They will condemn him to death and will hand him over to the Gentiles, who will mock him and spit on him, flog him and kill him. Three days later he will rise.”

Jesus knew what would happen to him in Jerusalem during this Passover festival. He was sent by the Father to die on the cross-a necessary, expiatory, substitutionary, exhaustive, penal death that accomplishes our redemption.

On this particular Sunday he took a deliberate action, designed to provoke the Jewish leaders to put him to death: he chose to come into the city, riding on a donkey as the promised Messiah, the Son of David. Why did Jesus come on a donkey and not a horse? Why did he not come in a chariot or carried by the people? The Old Testament speaks of the Messiah entering into Jerusalem, riding on a donkey: “Rejoice greatly, O Daughter of Zion! Shout, Daughter of Jerusalem! See, your king comes to you, righteous and having salvation, gentle and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey” (Zechariah 9:9). King David also rode on a donkey and caused his son Solomon to ride on a donkey when he was anointed king (1 Kings 1:33). The idea, then, is that this One riding on a donkey is the Son of David, the promised Messiah, the King of Israel, the one spoken of in the Davidic covenant, whose kingdom is forever and ever (2 Samuel 7).

The donkey Jesus borrowed can be considered a holy donkey because it was dedicated solely to the purpose of carrying the Messiah into Jerusalem. This donkey had not been ridden before. This was a sacred situation, a sacred use, so Jesus borrowed a holy donkey, possibly from the village of Bethphage, near the Mount of Olives, to fulfill Zechariah’s Messianic prophecy.

In honor of the royal Messiah’s arrival in Jerusalem, the people threw their outer garments on the donkey for Christ to sit on, and also on the road. They also cut branches from the trees and threw them on the road.

In those days people used palm branches to celebrate victories. The pilgrims carried palm branches, probably from Jericho, because palms are not grown in Bethany or Bethphage, as they went out to meet Jesus, as John tells us in John 12:13. We see them also being used by the redeemed of the Lord in heaven as they celebrate Christ’s great victory over sin and death:

After this I looked and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. And they cried out in a loud voice, ‘Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb'” (Revelation 7:9-10)

So the palm-carrying people who followed Jesus into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday were pointing to the later palm-waving multitude of saints whom the victorious Messiah, through his death and resurrection, would deliver from their slavery to sin and death. These pilgrims, including children, cried out to the one riding on the holy donkey, “Hosanna!” This Hebrew word for “Save us!” is from Psalm 118:25: “O Lord, save us; O Lord, grant us success.” Whether they understood it or not, when the crowd cried “Hosanna,” they were, in fact, acknowledging that the One riding on the donkey is the Savior, and there is no other.

They also addressed him as “Son of David.” What profound understanding these people had, that God would one day send the Son of David to inaugurate the everlasting kingdom of God! It was like the time when Jesus came from Galilee to Jericho, and blind Bartimaeus cried out, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy upon me!” Jesus alone is able to save, deliver, and help us. “Hosanna, Son of David!”

Then the crowd cried, “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.” They were declaring, “Blessed is the Messiah who is now coming into our city.” Then they said, “Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David.” These people had hoped for and looked forward to the eschatological arrival of the kingdom of God; finally, it was here. The King had come to usher in his kingdom of peace, joy, hope, righteousness, justice, purity, and victory.

They also proclaimed, “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord!” Not only is this One the Savior, to whom we cry, “Hosanna,” but he is Christ the Lord, the eternal King, the Son of David, the One who will not be destroyed by death nor succeeded by another. And, finally, they said, “Blessed is the King of Israel,” a designation we find only in chapter 12 of John’s gospel.

By entering Jerusalem in this way, Jesus, then, was deliberately identifying himself with the prophesied Messiah, the hope of Israel. He is the promised, eternal King and Savior of Israel and the world.

Appropriating the Cross

On Sunday we see the pilgrims praying to Jesus and extolling him as their King. Yet, as he predicted, the Jewish leaders arrested him on Thursday, crucified him on Friday, and the Lord raised him up on Sunday. Thus he fulfilled the eternal purpose of God in accomplishing our redemption, so that now everyone who calls on his name will be delivered from the bondage of sin and death. From the cross Jesus said, “It is finished!”; therefore, I say, “Cry out to him! Tell him, ‘Hosanna! Save us, Lord!’ and he will save you. No one else can.”

Not only should we cry out to him, but we must acknowledge him as our eternal King by surrendering to him and his sovereign rule. Antinomianism and libertinism are antithetical to the gospel that speaks about Jesus as Savior and King. We cannot trust in Christ and then violate his law. If we have surrendered to him, we will abide by his rule. In fact, even in the Old Testament believers acknowledged, “I delight in your law.” If we do not delight in the law of the Lord, it is because we are not saved. Those who are saved will surrender to this eternal King and embrace his rule-a rule that brings blessing to our souls.

Thus, I urge you to acknowledge him as your eternal King and repudiate any gospel that separates Jesus from kingship. The latter is the popular gospel widely and loudly proclaimed throughout the world today. But we can never separate this one Person, or separate his saviorhood from his kingship. If we accept Christ as Savior, we must accept him as King. When we do so, we can also take the symbolic palm branches in our hands and celebrate our redemption as we follow our victorious King Jesus, who leads us always in triumph into his everlasting kingdom.

Have you prayed to him to save you? I hope you will not debate the issue of sin. If we are honest with ourselves, we will arrive at the conclusion we are sinners. We can lower our standard from God’s Ten Commandments, and put it lower and lower, but the truth is, we even break our lowest standards. We are sinners! But God offers us an eternal Savior and King, who is able to save us to the uttermost. There is no sinner he cannot save.

Have you acknowledged him as your only Savior and King? He demands exclusive loyalty, obeisance, worship, acknowledgement, and service. We cannot have “both/and” – both Jesus and the devil. If you have acknowledged him as your only Savior and King, then you will glory in the gospel once for all delivered to the saints. The gospel is the most precious thing in the world, the one thing that gives overarching meaning to reality. (PGM) The gospel alone gives us hope and saves us. It does not just make salvation possible; it saves us, sets us free, and delivers us forever.

Take a good look at the one who is riding on the holy donkey. Join the pilgrims and the children in worshiping him, praying to him, praising him, and glorying in the gospel. Then you will fiercely fight for the defense of the gospel, even at the cost of your own reputation and life.

Contending for the Cross

This gospel is now under attack, not only by the theological liberals, who have always attacked it, but by evangelicals. Theological liberals use the vocabulary of the Bible-words like “resurrection” or “Jesus”-but empty them of their biblical meaning and pour into them a content that is alien, humanistic, and of this world.. For example, if you go to one of these churches, they may use the word “Jesus,” but they mean a Jesus who is just a man-a good man, maybe; even a social reformer, maybe; but not God. They may use the word “resurrection,” but they do so with an understanding that repudiates the miracle of resurrection.

Liberal churches have been doing this for years, ever since they rejected the authority of Scripture. But now we see this happening also among so-called evangelicals. The word “evangelical” comes from the word euangelion, which means the gospel; so an evangelical church by definition is a Bible-believing church. But today we see such churches using biblical vocabulary while emptying it of the biblical meaning and giving it their own meaning. They will speak, for instance, about forgiveness without repentance. It is an amazing phenomenon to see evangelicals believing in this type of nonsense. Many are thus preaching a gospel that will not save anyone from his sins. Their gospel proclaims an illusion of salvation, while permitting a person to sin all he wants.

But such a gospel is a delusion. It is a gospel of libertinism, of antinomianism, of Gnosticism, and of sheer lust. Perhaps one source of this type of thinking is the Jesus movement of the Sixties. There were people who were taking drugs and getting revelation and fornicating. Their motto was, “Make love, not war.” When they also embraced Jesus, they did not say goodbye to fornication and dope; they merely added Jesus to their lifestyle. Such people are in the evangelical and charismatic churches of today. They oppose the preaching of the true gospel but, oh, they love to sing choruses. They hate the propositional revelation of God’s word. They love Jesus as Savior, but want nothing to do with him as King.

Such people want true ministers of the gospel to convert to their kind of gospel. But if we do that, our God will terrify us (cf. Jeremiah 1:17). We will never preach Jesus and dope, Jesus and fornication, Jesus and adultery, Jesus and materialism, Jesus and greed, or Jesus and lie. This church refuses to compromise the true gospel. We will believe in, live for, and die for the biblical gospel, as our fathers of old have done. We will boldly proclaim that we are not saved to sin; we are saved to serve our King in the righteousness and holiness of truth. God saved us from our sins so that, as holy people of God, we might enjoy fellowship with God, who is most holy.

In 1 John 1:5 we read, “This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all.” Do you see that? What we hear from the Lord Jesus, we declare to you. We have no freedom to adjust, add to, or subtract from the gospel to make it palatable to modern man, who hates a holy life. What is the message we proclaim? “God is light; in him there is no darkness at all.” You see, our God is not the god of the Hindus, who is both light and darkness, good and evil. Our God is light.

Some people want the Christian God to be both light and darkness. Again, remember how many Western youth adopted Eastern ideas during the Sixties? Some who became Jesus people never adjusted their idea of God. So their “God” is still the Eastern god, who is both light and darkness, right and wrong. But John says that is not the God he is talking about. He declares with the authority given him by God: “God is light; in him there is no darkness at all.” Then he gives us the practical outworking of this truth: “If we claim to have fellowship with him, and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth” (v. 6).

The bottom line is, the gospel of the cross must change our behavior. Paul spoke of this transforming power of the cross in his letter to Titus. Paul left Titus on the island of Crete, among a people who were known as liars, brute beasts, and lazy gluttons. Did Paul tell Titus, “That is all right. Just go and preach the gospel. These Cretans can be Christians and still remain liars and brute beasts and lazy gluttons”? No!

In Titus 2:9 Paul writes, “Teach slaves to be subject to their masters in everything, to try to please them, not to talk back to them, and not to steal from them . . . .” Why did he say these things? Because that is what they were doing. So Paul says slaves should not do these things, but “show that they can be fully trusted, so that in every way they will make the teaching about God our Savior attractive.” Paul was saying, “Yes, I understand that you were thieves and insubordinate, untrustworthy, liars and cheats. But start wearing the gospel.” How would they wear the gospel? By being subject to their masters, by trying to please them, by not talking back, and by not stealing. When we stop sinning and start doing the right thing, we are making the gospel attractive to the world. One cannot truly hear the gospel and not be transformed by it.

In verses 11-14 Paul gives the reason behind this new behavior: “For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men. It teaches us to say ‘No’ to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age, while we wait for the blessed hope-the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good.” The grace of God trains us to reject ungodliness, which is the philosophy governing a sinner, “and worldly passions,” which is the outworking of this philosophy. This is the negative aspect.

What is the positive? “To live self-controlled, upright and godly lives.” Where are we to live such lives? Not in heaven, but in this present evil age, in this fallen world. So whether we are at work or at home, in the neighborhood or away, we must live such godly lives that the gospel will be attractive to others. We want people to ask us, “How come you are living an entirely different life than before? I knew you as a liar, an adulterer, a greedy man, an untrustworthy man, and a thief. What caused you to change?” Then we can tell them about the transforming power of the gospel.

We are to live such lives “while we wait for the blessed hope, the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ.” Notice, here Paul declares that Jesus Christ is Deity. And in verse 14 we are told that he “gave himself for us.” Christ died to redeem us from “all wickedness,” or “every lawlessness.” The word is anomia. Many modern evangelicals want a gospel that will permit them to practice lawlessness. But I cannot preach such a gospel. Why? I am committed to the Scriptures. Christ died to redeem us from all lawlessness “and to purify for himself a people that are his very own,” a people that he can be proud of. The bride of Christ is not a dirty woman. Jesus Christ is making her glorious, without stain or wrinkle.

The Cross and Libertinism

This is what Christianity is all about. This is why we speak about Palm Sunday and the inauguration of the great redemptive events that Jesus Christ accomplished on the cross. Christ has made us his own people, eager and enthusiastic “to do good works.” What are good works? Obedience to God’s law. God did not save us to repudiate his moral law; he saved us to make us able to fulfill it. He delivered us from lawlessness to make us lawful people.

Revelation 21:7-8 speaks about who is going to get into God’s kingdom and who is not. In verse 7 God says, “He who overcomes will inherit all this, and I will be his God and he will be my son.” But read verse 8: “But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars-their place will be in the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death.” Those who do not believe in Jesus Christ, though they glory in their arrogance, are lawless cowards, who will end up in the fiery lake of burning sulfur. “Oh,” you may say, “this idea of a burning lake is symbolism.” Yes, that is true, but the reason it is symbolic is that the reality is far beyond human description and comprehension.

I do not want anyone to go there; therefore, I preach the real gospel, proclaiming that the cross and libertinism have nothing in common. If we truly understand the cross, we will become lawful. We are not saved to sin more; we are saved to sin no more. Therefore, may God help us to be bold, intelligent, articulate, and knowledgeable in the gospel. May we never trade it for a cup of soup that will damn us and exclude us from heaven. May we speak only about a salvation that saves us from all wickedness. The Son of God is coming again for his bride-one who is holy and blameless, and God is making us holy and blameless. We look forward to that epiphany. And if you have believed the false gospel, may you be delivered, so that you will also call out, “Hosanna! Save us! Blessed is the King of Israel, who comes in the name of the Lord.” May you own Christ as Savior and King, and surrender himself completely to his beneficent, blessed, sovereign rule.