What Jesus Christ Is
By Roy Mitchell of Corbin, Kentucky“Where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free: but Christ is all, and in all” (Colossians 3:11).
He’s all, that about sums it up. He’s all to us. He means more to me now and He means more to you than anything else in all this world. As you near the end of your journey as I am, Jesus Christ becomes more precious everyday. He certainly does. And He’s always been precious but He becomes more precious when we know the end is near. I’ll soon be 78 and will soon be at home with the Lord. So Christ is all, there is no other Saviour. “Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).
Jesus Christ is the only way to Heaven. “Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me” (John 14:6). Now you may have heard me say many times before that nearly all older relatives on my father’s side went out of this world as far as anybody knows without being born again, none of them. Hardly any of them believed you had to be born again and they thought you’d get to Heaven on your good deeds. Most of them were honest people and truthful people. But you can’t get to Heaven without being born again no matter if you are honest. Oh that’s good, we want to be honest and truthful but that won’t get you to Heaven. Jesus said: “Except a man be born again he can’t see the kingdom of God.” There’s no way to get to Heaven without the new birth. So Christ is all.
First of all, He’s all in redemption. There is no redemption outside of Jesus Christ. “In whom we have redemption through His blood, even the forgiveness of sins” (Colossians 1:14) Redemption, what a interesting word in the Bible. It has three meanings in the New Testament. Redemption means “to purchase, to buy and the purchase price.” “Ye are bought with a price; be not ye the servants of men” (I Corinthians 7:23). We’ve been purchased with the precious blood of Jesus Christ. Most of you know that I spent fifty-one years in the school business in the Commonwealth of Kentucky. In counseling young people over the years about their conduct and their manner of living, I’ve heard this comment many times. “This is my life, I’ll live it like I please.” If you are a child of God you can say that you’ve been purchased. And the purchase price was the precious blood of Jesus Christ. Our obligation to Jesus Christ after this purchase is the obligation of a bought slave, bought, purchased.
The second meaning is “set free.” Set free from the law of sin and death. You might ask the poor drug addict if you have any around, and I’m sure you do like we do, “Are you free?” “Yes, I’m free. I can go where I want to and I can do this or that.” They think they are free but they are not. They are under the domination of Satan and redemption will set that man or woman free. In my school where I work I’ve learned this, I’ve learned how to watch my students when they come in and observe everything and when I see them coming in I know I can observe which ones are on drugs, and we have plenty of them. I saw one of the best videos on drugs there and sometimes in a class where I fill in, I change the teacher assignment and put that video in. Before I put it in I say, “Boys and girls, I’ve got the cure and at the end of this video I’ll tell you the cure of the drug problem. I’ll tell you the cure to the alcohol problem, I’ll tell you the cure for the moral sins that you boys and girls are committing everyday. And after the video is over, I say, “Now I’ve got the cure,” I told them that many times, and in this particular class I remember real well, an old country boy spoke up and said, “tell us what it is then.” And I told them, and I don’t hesitate to tell them in a pulic school and no one has ever said a word to me. I’ve been there going on twelve years in this particular school. I said, “Here’s the cure for the drug problem and the alcohol problem and the moral sin problem. The blood of Jesus Christ, God’s son, cleanses us from all sin.” I tell them the blood of Jesus is the only hope of getting out of that drug problem. Rehab is not, absolutely not, the cure. Now I’ve visited Rehab one time. Oh how pitiful, how pitiful. There were boys and girls lying in the hall and we had to step over them. And the ones who could walk, were so pitiful raising their legs as high as they could like they were trying to fly through the air on drugs. Rehab is not the cure, the blood of Jesus Christ is the cure. Redemption means to “set free.”
The third one will take you surely on shouting ground. The third meaning of redemption is “to take you out of the market place.” No longer being auctioned off by Satan on his auction block, you become one of the precious jewels of Jesus Christ, and He certainly guards His jewels. One of these days He’s going to put all these jewels on display. “All that the Father giveth to me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out” (John 6:37). When the roll is called up yonder, every last one of them whose names are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life will be there. All will be there and not one will be absent. If we get any crowns at the judgment seat of Christ, we’ll lay every one at the feet of Jesus Christ. Redemption, oh how I love to proclaim it. There is no other way. “Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers; But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot” (I Peter 1:18-19). How are you redeemed? How are you so purchased? How are you set free? How are you taken out of the market place of sin? Only by the precious blood of Jesus Christ. When they brought us back from Germany in 1952, they put us on a train in New York City, traveling through all the way to Kentucky to be mustered out. Honestly, I can’t really remember but one thing on that trip from New York to Kentucky. One night I was sitting right by the window as we were going down the railroad tracks. Just to my right as I was sitting there, there was this small church building with a neon sign all the way across that church building and it read: “Jesus’ blood makes the sinner clean”. Back then a lot of people traveled on the train and I don’t know how many hundreds or perhaps thousands of people saw that sign there at night. The blood of Jesus makes the sinner clean. That’s the only hope if you are lost today. You only have one hope and that hope is in Jesus Christ. There’s no other way, no other truth, no other light, no one else is the Bread of life, no one else is the Water of life. The hymn writer said:
My hope is built on nothing less
Than Jesus’ blood and righteousness;
I dare not trust the sweetest frame,
But wholly lean on Jesus’ name.
On Christ, the solid Rock, I stand;
All other ground is sinking sand,
All other ground is sinking sand.Secondly, Jesus Christ is all in our justification. Now when I hear a preacher or Bible teacher give the meaning of justification, it raises me up on shouting grounds. Justification, if you break it down to syllables will mean “just as if I never sinned.” Just as if I never committed a single solitary sin and were declared righteous. The blood of Jesus has cleansed us from all sin. The righteousness of Jesus Christ was placed over on us and our dirty rotten and filthy sins were placed over on Him. He bore our sins with His own body on the tree of the cross. We are justified by faith, therefore, being justified by faith we are at peace with God. “Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified” (Galatians 2:16). We are justified on the basis of the shed blood of Jesus Christ. Now did you know every Christian, every saint reading this, has a clean record in Heaven, even though your record my have been as dark as midnight. Makes no difference what kind of sin you’ve committed, the blood of Jesus Christ cleansed you from all of that. No Christian has a sin record. It has all been laid on Jesus Christ. We are clothed in His righteousness. He’s all in redemption, He’s all in justification, Thirdly He’s all in forgiveness. A lot of people have a lot of different ways of thinking that they are going to be forgiven, some on the basis of good works, turning over a new leaf, reforming to do better. I have a book written by a man of another denomination who didn’t believe what I’m saying. Do you know what his advice was to lost sinners? Go home and begin to do better. He ought to have known better but he didn’t and he died believing that. There’s no other source of forgiveness in Whom we have redemption than through His blood, even the forgiveness of sin. If I were to ask you how many sins you’ve committed in your life, you would say, “well, I surely don’t know.” No one knows how many sins we’ve committed. It ought to alarm us more than anything else, all our accumulated sins. You can’t think of numbering them but the blood of Jesus cleansed us from every one of them. Christ is all in our forgiveness. No other basis, no other source, no other way, no other name, all in Jesus Christ and in Him alone. If I were to ask you, what are you depending on to get you to heaven? What’s the basis of your hope of going to Heaven? I hope you can say what I quoted from the hymn writer a while ago, “My hope is built on nothing less, than Jesus blood and righteousness.” I have no other hope.
Fourthly, Jesus Christ is all as far as righteousness is concerned. All of our righteousnesses are as filthy rags, filthy rags in the sight of a Holy God. Christ is all of our wisdom, He’s all of our righteousness, He’s all our sanctification, He’s all of our redemption, “For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him” (II Corinthians 5:21). That Scripture tells us that His righteousness was placed over on us and our sins were placed over on Him. Now we are clothed in the perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ. When God the Father looks down at these redeemed ones He sees us clothed in the righteousness of His own dear Son. What a Saviour we have!
In the fifth place, Jesus Christ is all as our Mediator. How many mediators do we have between God and man? One! A mediator is one who stands in between two parties. God the Father on the throne and we down here as His children. And how do we reach the Father? Through Jesus Christ the Mediator. One mediator and no other. You can’t get to the Father except through Jesus Christ. Do you know what Jesus Christ is doing now? Do you ever wonder what Jesus Christ is doing at the present time? He’s making intercession for us. He ever liveth, He’s seated right now beside God the Father making intercession for all His people. I tell you, we have a marvelous Saviour. As I said, He becomes more precious to me everyday.
Now the last point I want you to notice is that He’s all when it comes to the end of the way. He’s everything we need when it comes to the end of the way. My godly Mother had a brain tumor, and I stood beside her until she drew her last breath. Even though the pain may have been terrible and from head to foot, deep down in the heart and soul of her or any other saint is a peace that the world knows nothing about. They know that they will soon be at home with the Lord. They know that the trials, trouble, and sorrows of this life are soon going to be over. They know that at the resurrection of the just they are going to get a glorified body like unto the glorified body of the Son of God. He’s not finished with us yet. Salvation is in three tenses. We are saved from the penalty of sin, that’s justification. We are being saved now from the power of sin, that’s sanctification. One of theses days we are going to be saved from the very presence of sin and Jesus Christ is the source of every one of them. May the Holy Spirit bear this question deep down in your heart as I ask it. I wonder if there’s a person reading this who is outside of Jesus Christ. You know we, as sovereign grace preachers have been misrepresented by our enemies so badly. All the sovereign grace preachers that I know of have no problem preaching the glorious gospel to every creature because we know that God chose a great number that no man can count, but we don’t know who they are. We surely don’t. So we have no prolem preaching the glorious gospel to every creature, knowing that the Holy Spirit will use it to bring in His people. The sweetest sound that a regenerated sinner ever heard after being quickened and made alive is when you hear the first time with those new ears how that Christ died for our sins, how He became our suffering substitute, how He paid all the debt that we owed, and how He was buried and on the third day rose again according to the Scriptures. That’s the glorious gospel, the sweetest sound that I ever heard. I wonder if you’ve heard that sweet sound. I pray that Almighty God may be pleased to use these few simple words to edify saints and to use it to draw sinners to Jesus Christ. Look unto Him, unto Jesus Christ and live for evermore.
========================== [From Editor Christopher Cockrell, The Berea Baptist Banner December 5, 2005; transcribed from a sermon preached on June 6, 2005. Scanned and formatted by Jim Duvall.]
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