The Finished Work of Christ: 14 Sermon Series: His Death, His Resurrection, His Ascension, His Exaltation

By Dr. R.L. Davis

What is the finished work of Jesus Christ? It took place 2,000 years ago starting with the cross of Calvary. Discover how His death was more important than His life. See how His death, His resurrection, His ascension, and His exaltation can change your life today and for all eternity! This dynamic 14 sermon series was transcribed from actual sermons from Zion Word Church USA where Dr. R. L. Davis is the Pastor and Founder.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: May 6, 2013
• ISBN: 9781626758162

Book preview

Death

Lesson #1

When someone says the work of Christ, we are often thinking about Jesus healing the sick, raising the dead, walking on water, turning water into wine, healing people that are blind, etc…. No, those are works. I am not going to be teaching about the works of Christ. Is your mind started yet? I am going to be teaching on the work of Christ.

Hebrews 10:9 Then said he, Lo, I come to do thy will, O God. He taketh away the first, that he may establish the second.

Jesus took away the Old Covenant. The Law of Moses was fulfilled completely and done away with. Old covenants were put on the backburner and Jesus Himself initiated a better covenant established on better promises for you and me. It is an eternal, everlasting covenant. He said I come to do your will, oh God. The Father’s will was to take away the first and establish the second and the Son came to do that. This was a work.

I think about when the Lord was on the Cross there is a song that says He could have called ten thousand angels to destroy the world and set Him free. He could have called ten thousand angels, but He died alone for you and me. Could He have done this? I want to get you to think. The truth is, I do not know if the Lord could have called ten thousand angels or not. I do know that He did not, and that is what matters. Then if we drop down to verse 12:

Hebrews 10:12 But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God.

The Word, the Living Word, the Second Person of the Trinity, came to this earth from Heaven and He came to do the will of God: to establish the new covenant. He also came to offer Himself as a sacrifice for sins.

Hebrews 1:3 Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high.

Jesus is the one who upholds all things by the word of His power. He purged our sins all by Himself. Of course, we are not excluding the Holy Spirit Person. Jesus did this work all by Himself with the aid of the Holy Spirit. There was no other person that could help. All that the human race would do is taint the sacrifice. So then after Jesus, by Himself, had purged our sins, then He sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high. That means that the Father God accepted the work of the Son. God the Father could not intervene for His Son without the devil saying FOUL.

This Jesus—Yeshua Ha Mashiach—is so wonderful, with so much love, that I cannot comprehend it. The work of Christ I am talking about here is the importance of His death. I will admit that He worked as a soul-winner, a preacher, and a teacher, but His work really involved His death, His resurrection, His ascension, and His exaltation. That was the work. The latter being the reward, or result, of His work on earth. If He sat down on the right hand of the Father, then He is not on the earth anymore. The reason He could sit down on the right hand of the Father is because of the work that He alone finished for us, not for Himself.

Even though Jesus was a prophet, priest, and king, He was and is THE Prophet, Priest, and King, but this alone was not enough to fulfill God’s will. His death was required. There are some that teach that He was assassinated. This is nonsense. Some will say that He committed suicide. Is that a fact? His death was a work because He was aware of what God wanted Him to do. Also, He knew it would accomplish something wonderful for His beneficiaries: that being - life eternal. The death of Jesus was the first phase of His work that He alone would accomplish for you and me. Why did it have to be so? …Because no human being could pay the debt…none.

His death was more important than His life. I know that Jesus was a great miracle-worker, He had no sin, was born of the virgin, but these were not enough. He came to this world for one reason: He was born to die. Yes, He spoke in parables and had revelation beyond any human. I know, He was God in the flesh. But the reason He became the Son of Man, and took upon a human body, was to die. He was aware of God’s will concerning the work that the Father God initiated before the foundation of the world. He was the one that conversed with the Godhead and thought this plan up. His death was more important than His life that He lived on the earth. However, it seems that our life is more important than our death. I think that this is so. But with Christ Jesus, His death was more important than His life. Let us look at the very first prophecy that God Himself gave concerning the Messiah, Jesus that would come. This was right after God was forced to pronounce the curse on the human race because of the sin of Adam and Eve. God never makes a judgment without making a way to escape.

Genesis 3:15 And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.

This is the first prophecy that God gave concerning the Savior that would come and have His heel bruised on the Cross. Right from the beginning, we know that the Messiah would come and go to a cross and have His heel bruised, and that He would also crush the devil’s head! He would defeat the devil. The Cross of Calvary was not a defeat for Christ; it was a defeat for the devil! The Cross of Calvary was a victory for the Son of God. The resurrection is a by-product of the work of the Cross. If the work of Christ, concerning His physical death on the Cross, was not absolutely sinless and perfect, then there would be no resurrection. The miracle is not the resurrection, but is the work of death that He alone performed on the Cross.

Genesis 3:21 Unto Adam also and to his wife did the LORD God make coats of skins, and clothed them.

God is giving us a glimpse of a type and a shadow of provision that would come. Concerning the Old Testament and beginning with Adam’s fall, God initiated animal sacrifices where that blood would represent the blood of the One that would come, and be born to die…the last sacrifice. If we, as Gentiles (or even Jews), would offer a lamb in a church service, and look to that blood, this would be anathema, abomination, and blaspheme. We cannot believe that the bread literally turns into the body and the wine into the blood; these are a symbol of what Jesus did for us. We have to guard against all of these things because they are leaven, and if you accept them, you will leaven up. I am very dogmatic about the 1-2-3’s of types and anti-types.

Genesis 4:4 And Abel, he also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat [the best] thereof. And the LORD had respect unto Abel and to his offering.

Abel went out because it was God’s will. God would postpone judgment and work through their faith in the sacrifice that would come. They had to trust the Lord in bringing the sacrifice—this is true—but they had to look through the sacrifice for thousands of years later unto the Messiah that would come: the last, final sacrifice. That offered lamb represented Christ. Therefore, God could not accept Cain because he tried to take another way. There is no other way. Do you actually think that the sweet potato represents Christ? No. Cain wanted to be the messiah. Cain probably ended up you-know-where, but I do not know. In the Old Testament, we can see that the Passover lamb in Exodus and all of the offerings in the Old Testament painted a picture of the coming work of Jesus, which would be His death.

I am going to make a statement and I want you to get it. Christianity is the only religion in the world that has, for a foundation, the death of the one who cut the covenant for its followers. Other religions do not have somebody that died and started them. That is because they are all false. If we take out the death of the Son of God, we are nothing more than another pagan religion. So I want us to understand that the death was the primary meaning of the work of Christ. He came to die, not to make friends or to do anything except die. He was aware of this when He was in the garden and sweat great drops of blood. And He, being human, prayed Father, if there is another way… but with no answer. So, He accepted God’s will. Then I think about the prophecy in Daniel:

Daniel 9:26 And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself: and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary; and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined.

The Messiah was the one who was going to come and bruise the head of the serpent/devil. God has given further revelation on Genesis 3:15 to the prophet Daniel. Daniel, under inspiration of the Holy Spirit, said what we have recorded in the Word of God saying: that after a certain number of years, the Savior shall die, but not for Himself. Jesus had to come and die at a specific time, but not for Himself. There was no other way.

Zechariah 11:12 And I said unto them, If ye think good, give me my price; and if not, forbear. So they weighed for my price thirty pieces of silver. And the LORD said unto me, Cast it unto the potter: a goodly price that I was prised at of them. And I took the thirty pieces of silver, and cast them to the potter in the house of the LORD.

Does that sound familiar? That was the prophecy from Zechariah concerning the betrayal and subsequent death of the Savior that was to come.

Psalms 41:9-11 Yea, mine own familiar friend, in whom I trusted, which did eat of my bread, hath lifted up his heel against me. 10 But thou, O LORD, be merciful unto me, and raise me up, that I may requite them. 11 By this I know that thou favourest me, because mine enemy doth not triumph over me.

The prophet David wrote this under direct inspiration and it was a prophecy concerning Judas that would come and betray the Savior for thirty pieces of silver. That is the reason that filthy lucre is sin. We can go on and on in the Old Testament with God giving over 300 prophecies concerning the coming Savior. He [the Savior] would come to do His [Father’s] work. The main work that Christ came to do was to die. In the New Testament, His death is mentioned by writers over 175 times. I find this very significant. He was incarnated for death. He came to this world and took on flesh for one reason—and I want to stress this—for death. Once again, His death was more important than His life.

Mark 10:45 For even the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many.

He knew why He was to come. That is the reason it is almost unpardonable for a person to walk away from the Lamb of God that gave His life for them. Rejection of that truth will send a person to hell…do not ever forget this. Jesus came to give His life. He was not martyred, He was not killed, no man took His life from Him, and He was not assassinated. All of these man-made concepts are to be thrown out. I do not think Jesus would have ever physically died because He had no sin. The first Adam would never have really died if he had only partaken of the tree of life. Jesus had no need of the tree of life because He was the life. Because He would have never died, that makes His death more significant than ours. We are going to die physically.

Do not think that just because Jesus went to the Cross and our sins were laid on His shoulders that this caused Him to die, because it did not. Sin did not kill Jesus, the devil did not kill Him, soldiers did not kill Him, nor did Jews kill Him. He said I have power to lay my life down, and I have power to take it up again, this commandment have I received of the Father (John 18:10). To repeat: He was born to die. It was God’s will because if He had not finished His work, then all of us would be burning in hell forever. We dare not let these truths slip from our pure minds.

1 John 3:5 And ye know that he was manifested to take away our sins; and in him is no sin.

In Him is no sin. There never were and never will be any sin in the Savior. It is no wonder He is the only one and the only way. I spoke with an Indian pastor on the phone. He said Most people in India are Muslim or Hindu. I said Those people can be saved, too. He said Yes, amen. Jesus is able to save to the uttermost because He is the Savior; that is what He does. He has the authority and the right to do so. He earned the right to be the Savior because of His work. The result of His death is redemption for the lost. If we forget this, we need to have our mind refreshed. The people that do not know the good news need to hear it, which is that Jesus is Redemptor for the lost. He came to pay for us. He knew we could not pay God’s demand for ourselves. His death for us because of our sins is the good news.

We have a misunderstanding. It is not wrong to say Jesus died for our sins, because the Bible does say that. However, more specifically, I think that we need to understand that sins could not be saved. We were the ones that needed saved. Jesus came to die for us—because of our sins. This is the true meaning. That was His work that He came to do. He was aware when He stood before Pilate. He was aware when He stood before Herod. He was aware when the Pharisees