The Bible’s Most Important Verse

00:00:00.000 | [Music]

00:00:05.000 | Adam writes in to ask this, "Pastor John, recently at the Passion Conference in Atlanta, Georgia,

00:00:10.000 | I heard you say on stage that Romans 3.25 is the most important verse in all of the Bible. Why is that?"

00:00:18.000 | Well, I'm glad he picked up on it, because I did say that.

00:00:21.000 | And actually what I said was, "It might not be, but if somebody put a gun to my head and made me choose,

00:00:27.000 | this is the verse I would choose."

00:00:31.000 | And here's my reason. Well, let me read the verse first, because not everybody will know what it is.

00:00:36.000 | Romans 3.25 says, "God put Christ forward as a propitiation by His blood to be received by faith.

00:00:46.000 | This was to show God's righteousness, because in His divine forbearance He passed over former sins."

00:00:56.000 | I think that's the most important verse in the Bible.

00:00:59.000 | Now, what in the world? Why would I say that?

00:01:02.000 | Because it describes the two most amazing remedies for the two most horrific problems of mankind in the universe.

00:01:16.000 | So if you do a survey, "What's the biggest problem of mankind?"

00:01:18.000 | Very few people would say, "The wrath of God."

00:01:21.000 | But it is. The wrath of God is the greatest problem.

00:01:26.000 | And now here in this verse, you've got piece upon piece upon piece piled up as God deals with this problem.

00:01:33.000 | So you've got God, you've got Christ, you've got "put forward," that's the Incarnation,

00:01:38.000 | you've got "by blood," that's the Atonement, you've got "propitiation," that's the heart of what happens in the Atonement

00:01:45.000 | as God's wrath is removed and absorbed.

00:01:48.000 | You've got "for faith," which is the best news in all the world, because it's not works.

00:01:52.000 | You've got "vindicating God's righteousness," which means the just demand that He show wrath has been dealt with.

00:02:00.000 | And you've got "because of passing over sins," which means the final wonder is He doesn't hold our sins against us.

00:02:06.000 | I mean, I don't know any verse that packs as many glorious things into itself in dealing with the two worst problems.

00:02:15.000 | So let me just underline that problem number one in the universe is God's wrath is on all human beings unto eternal damnation.

00:02:26.000 | John 3.36, "If we don't believe in Jesus, we remain, we remain."

00:02:32.000 | That's forever. If we don't believe, we remain under the wrath of God.

00:02:37.000 | Or Romans 3.5, where anger and fury are warranting God's wrath.

00:02:46.000 | God is righteous to inflict wrath on us.

00:02:49.000 | So those are the two things, God's wrath and His righteousness demands wrath.

00:02:54.000 | It's not just that God's angry. I mean, He could be some kind of flippant tyrant.

00:02:58.000 | That's not the case. He is absolutely just and righteous in the wrath that He has against us.

00:03:06.000 | So those are there in this verse behind the word "propitiation."

00:03:11.000 | Now, the remedies are, He shed His blood, that is, Christ shed His blood, and by shedding His blood, He propitiates the wrath of God.

00:03:23.000 | So the flamethrower of God's omnipotent—I mean, we just need to ponder this—omnipotent fury, the flamethrower of God's omnipotent fury is,

00:03:36.000 | the trigger is about to be pulled, and as it's pulled, Christ steps between us and the flamethrower, and He absorbs every bit of it on Himself.

00:03:47.000 | And He dies because of it, and we don't feel that heat at all. We are freed from it.

00:03:55.000 | So the greatest problem in the universe is solved in this verse and spoken in this verse.

00:04:02.000 | And the second one is that God is righteous to show wrath, and so how can He not?

00:04:09.000 | And the answer is, He doesn't sweep sin under the rug. He deals with it in His Son, and therefore Jesus vindicates the righteousness of God.

00:04:18.000 | So He doesn't just remove the wrath of God. He vindicates the righteousness of God.

00:04:22.000 | I don't know any verse in the Bible besides this one that says that at least so clearly.

00:04:28.000 | And those are the two massive obstacles that have to be dealt with.

00:04:32.000 | And then gloriously, it says, "to be received by faith."

00:04:38.000 | So I don't have to work for this. I don't have to perform for this.

00:04:42.000 | I watch God perform salvation from God because He loves me, and I simply welcomed it.

00:04:50.000 | I received that, and that honors Him as a covenant-keeping God.

00:04:55.000 | So on and on we could go in this verse, but there's the essence of it.

00:04:59.000 | The two biggest problems in the universe are solved with the two biggest remedies, and then it's just handed to us freely by faith.

00:05:06.000 | Yes, excellent. Well said, Pastor John.

00:05:08.000 | And thank you for listening to this podcast.

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00:05:41.000 | Thank you for your financial support.

00:05:43.000 | And speaking of significant life concerns, tomorrow we'll be back with a very important and serious question from a listener.

00:05:50.000 | Is an addiction to pornography an unpardonable sin? Is it unforgivable?

00:05:55.000 | I look forward to Pastor John's thoughts on that tomorrow.

00:05:58.000 | Until then, I'm your host, Tony Reinke. Thanks for listening and thanks for partnering with us.

00:06:03.000 | [end]

00:06:06.000 | [end]

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The Bible’s Most Important Verse

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