Sermon Series: Five Words You Must Understand
1 Corinthians 14:19
Yet in the church I had rather speak
five words with
my understanding,
that by my voice I might teach others also,
than ten thousand words in an unknown tongue.
Part Twenty: John 8:11
“Neither do I condemn thee.”
Introduction:
On the old Daniels
and Webster program on ROCK107 we often heard from one Walter Nepasky. He would begin his commentary with either,
“I'm Walter Nepasky and today I wanna talk
about three things.”, or “Hi. My name is Walter Nepasky.
How you doin'? Today I want to talk to you about
tree tings.”
What if we had a modern Christian radio station —The Rock of Ages 316 — with a program
that began, “Hi, I’m Paul of Tarsus, and today I want to talk about five
words.”
The Apostle Paul wrote: Yet in the church I had rather
speak five words with my understanding,
that by my voice I might teach others also,
than ten thousand words in an unknown tongue.[1]
Paul follows up his introduction on The Rock of Ages 316 with his personal example — an extreme
preference framed as a mathematical proportion: 5 versus 10,000. This is Paul’s
“druthers”! This is when 5 is better
than 10,000!
If Paul were here, and you could pin him down to a
literal selection of five words, what do you think he would choose? “Gimme Five Paul!”
Before we get to a selected list of five word Scripture
passages that might be in Paul’s “in box” we should also consider how Charles
Haddon Spurgeon went even beyond Paul, perhaps due to “spiritual inflation” in
the intervening centuries!
“But the seed, though very small, was a living
thing. There is a great difference between a mustard seed and a piece of
wax of the same size. Life slumbers in that seed. What life is we cannot tell.
Even if you take a microscope you cannot spy it out. It is a mystery, but it is
essential to a seed. The Gospel has a something in it not readily discoverable
by the philosophical inquirer, if, indeed, he can perceive it at all. Take a maxim
of Socrates or of Plato, and inquire whether a nation or a tribe has ever been
transformed by it from barbarism to culture. A maxim of a philosopher may have
measurably influenced a person in some right direction, but who has ever heard
of a someone's whole character being transformed by any observation of
Confucius or Socrates? I confess I never have. Human teachings are barren. But
within the Gospel, with all its triteness and simplicity, there is a divine
life and that life makes all the difference. The human can never rival the
divine, for it lacks the life-fire. It is better to preach five words of God's Word than five million words
of human wisdom. Human words may seem to be the wiser and the more
attractive, but there is no heavenly life in them. Within God's Word, however
simple it may be, there dwells an omnipotence like that of God from whose lips
it came.”[2]
Now for some possibilities
from Paul’s “in box.”
Note: The five word
statements from Scripture selected may not actually be five word statements in either the Hebrew or Greek originals, nor are
they necessarily complete sentences or verses in English language translations
from the Hebrew and Greek, including the King James Version which is the source translation for the
statements. Nevertheless, they were
selected for the fundamental truths and span of doctrine that they
present. The current list of 36 examples
is not intended to be comprehensive, and may easily be expanded or
consolidated.
The 36 selections are categorized under
the following four headings:
The Person of Christ — The Redeemer
The Work of Christ (as Prophet, Priest and King) —
Redemption Accomplished
The Salvation of Christ — Redemption Applied
The Return of Christ — Redemption Revealed
The five word
statement to be considered on this occasion falls under the third of these four
headings, The Salvation of Christ — Redemption Applied. The statement is
found as part of a narrative whose textual pedigree is the source of sharp
division. Mention must be made of the textual
issue with this narrative, the Johannine
Pericope, otherwise known as the Pericope
Adulterae. If anyone has issues with the fact that this will be preached as
Scripture, as the Word of God, we can discuss that afterwords.
Outline:
I. What Christ could have said, but did not say
II. What Christ did say
III. The Significance of What Christ Did Say
Setting up the
statement: two questions with one answer.
This woman was a
sinner.
This woman was an
adulteress.
This woman was
guilty.
About these facts
there can be no doubt.
They are
indisputable.
This reality
makes the ending, the climax of this event that much more shocking.
The Condemnation
of men:
We are so ready
to condemn, but not to the letter of God’s Law, to say nothing about the
Spirit.
We want to twist
His Law around for our own purposes.
We want to use
God’s Law to make Him go away, to make Him appear less in the eyes of those
around us.
We want to use
God’s Law as a means to an end, and as a tool, an instrument, to further our
own agenda, and to protect our position.
The issue now
boils down to one Person. What about Him?
It doesn’t matter
what anyone else thinks or says if Christ has an accusation or accusations to
bring against someone.
Where are those
who would accuse us when we stand before Christ?
Where is the
Accuser of the brethren when we stand in that great day before His throne of
grace and glory?
I. What Christ could have said, but did not say
You have sinned.
You and I both know that. There can be no doubt about that since you were
apprehended in the very act of adultery.
You are a sinner.
Your are guilty.
Specifically, you are guilty of the sin of adultery.
Therefore, I
condemn you.
I doesn’t matter
what others think, or say, or do. It only matters what my judgment is. They may
not have been able to charge you according to the Law since they did not
produce the man who was your equally guilty partner in this sin, but I do not
need the Law to condemn you since I am the one who searches the hearts. Before
my throne all are guilty whether they have the Law as the Jews do, or not as is
the case with the Gentiles. All have sinned, all are guilty, and all are
deserving of my condemnation.
II. What Christ did say[3]
NASB — “I
do not condemn you, either.”
ESV — “Neither do I condemn you”
HCSB — “Neither do I condemn you”
NIV — “Then neither
do I condemn you”
NLT — “Neither do I.”
The issue is cast
by Christ in His statement to the woman as one of condemnation, here phrased in
the negative, i.e., as
non-condemnation.
Condemnation in
John’s Gospel/ Condemnation from the lips of Jesus:
3:17-19 — 17
For
God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world
through him might be saved. 18 He that believeth on him is not
condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not
believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. 19 And
this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved
darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.
5:24 — Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that
heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and
shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life.
1 There
is
therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not
after the flesh, but after the Spirit. 2 For
the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of
sin and death. 3 For
what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending
his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the
flesh: 4 That the righteousness of the law might
be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit….31 What shall
we then say to these things? If God be
for us, who can be against us? 32 He
that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not
with him also freely give us all things? 33 Who shall lay any thing to the
charge of God's elect? It is God that
justifieth. 34 Who is he that
condemneth? It is Christ that died,
yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also
maketh intercession for us. 35 Who shall separate us from the love of
Christ? shall tribulation, or
distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? 36 As it is written, For thy sake we are
killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. 37 Nay, in all these things we are more
than conquerors through him that loved us. 38 For I
am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor
powers, nor things present, nor things to come, 39 Nor height, nor depth, nor any other
creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ
Jesus our Lord.
III. The Significance of What Christ Did Say
These are words
of justification. If He does not condemn, then there is no condemnation.
Condemnation is done away with, and made a non-issue. Whatever condemnation His
people may have faced or deserved He has borne. If He does not condemn then
there is no condemnation.
Condemnation is
the counterpart to justification:
Romans
5:16-19 — 16 And not as it was by one that sinned, so
is the gift: for the judgment was
by one to condemnation, but the free gift is
of many offences unto justification. 17 For if by one man's offence
death reigned by one; much more they which receive abundance of grace and of
the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ.) 18 Therefore
as by the offence 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. 19 For as by one man's disobedience many
were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous.
This is a word of justification.
Any who would attempt to condemn her now must do so by
standing against the Lord Jesus Christ, which no one had ever been able to do,
could to, or ever will be able to do.
Conclusion:
Do you hear these words?
Do they resonate with you?
Have you taken them personally?
Are they more than just words on a page to you?
[Sermon preached 28 JUN 2015 by Pastor John T. “Jack”
Jeffery at Wayside Gospel Chapel, Greentown, PA.]
End Notes:
[1] 1 Corinthians 14:19.
[2] Charles H. Spurgeon,
“The Mustard Seed: A Sermon for the Sabbath-School Teacher” (Lk.
13:18-19), Sermon No. 2110, delivered 20
OCT 1889, at the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington, U.K.; in Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol. 35
(1889), pp. 565ff.; in Charles H. Spurgeon, The Parables of Our Lord (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 2003), pg. 707; and
on The Spurgeon Archive at http://www.spurgeon.org/sermons/2110.htm [accessed 23 DEC 2014].
[3] οὐδὲ ἐγώ σε κατακρίνω —
MT2, NA27/UBS4, and TR. RP/BYZ has κρίνω.
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