所有圣经经文中最大的问题是，公义圣洁的神怎么能掩盖你的罪呢？感谢神，耶稣基督在十字架上的死，足以为你所有的罪买单！就是在那里，你和我在整个永恒中应该经历的与神的分离，是耶稣基督在十字架上为我们受的。
保罗·华许 – 基督的福音大有能力拯救
我要告诉你一个在圣经里最困难、
最大的难题，
那就是
如果你属于这个教会，你已经听过百万遍，
但是你们当中有人还没有听过，
这个教会的人现在要听第一百万零一遍。
这是圣经里最大的难题：
如果神是善的，他不能赦免你；
如果神是公义、圣洁的，
他不能赦免你；
你会说：“什么！”
但的确是这样！
圣经里最大的难题…
我们在出埃及记里看到，
我们在诗篇里看到，
我们甚至在箴言里看到，
我们看见保罗在罗马书第3章里处理这个难题。
这难题是：
如果神是公义的，他怎能
就这样…
如他所说的，
转身不看你的罪？
他怎能遮掩你的罪？
他怎能让罪远远离开你，像东离西那样远？
在诗篇，并且罗马书第4章…
字面的意思就是：他把罪遮掩了；
如果一位法官把罪隐瞒、遮掩起来，我们会怎么想？
我们会说他是公义公平的吗？
不会的！
我们说他是腐败的，
他伸张正义了吗？
当然没有！
他诬蔑了正义。
在这儿你看见了圣经里的一个难题，
神是公义的！
因为他是公义的，
因为他是圣洁的，
你知道吗？
因为他是爱，所以他恨…
他恨恶罪。
有人说，
“因为神是爱，所以他不会恨！”
不，因为神是爱，所以他务必恨…
他恨邪恶，
他无法忽视邪恶，
他无法忽视你的罪恶，
或我的罪恶，
任何人的罪恶；
神是公义的法官，
审判全地的法官岂不该做正确的事吗？
因此圣经的最大难题是：
神怎能够一方面公义，
另一方面那样赦免邪恶的人呢？
他怎能这样做？
答案在这位耶稣基督里，
这也是许多人对十字架有所不了解的地方，
公义的神定人类的罪，
每一个人，在座的每一位，
从亚当之后，生在这世上的每一个人，
被定罪了，
所有的宗教，或参与教会，
任何其它你能想出来的，
都帮不上忙，
你被定罪了。
你必须是完美的才能上天堂，
必须要有完美的义，
而没有任何人有完美的义！
神不能在这上面妥协，
因为他是义的！
他不能把你的罪包起来、
或藏起来。
因此，因为他的义，神定了你的罪、
和我的罪、并所有的人类，
之后，神因着他的爱，成为一个人，
活出你活不出的生命、
我活不出的生命，
他不止没有犯罪，
同时也活出完美的、义的生活，
不止没有消极的犯错，
更积极、正面的活，
活出了义的生命。
之后，这位神的儿子，上了各各他，
死在各各他!
现在有个问题，
当你听到这类复活节的信息，
你主要听到了什么？
你听见罗马人把他钉在木头上，
鞭打他，又用茅刺他，
你听见罗马人对耶稣所做的一些事，
杀了他，
当你听见这类的讲道…
这类的讲道完全没说到重点，
我们得救，并非因为罗马人鞭打了耶稣，
并且杀了他，
我们从罪中被救，是因为当他被钉在木头上时，
你所有的罪都归算到他头上，
使得天上的神离弃他唯一的儿子，
不是因为他不忍看他受苦，
不是的！
他离弃他唯一的儿子，
因为他唯一的儿子成了「罪」！
而那种与神的隔绝，本是你该受的、
我该受的，
永永远远该受的，
神的儿子在那木头上受了！
并且，不止是神消极的离开他而已，
以至于耶稣大声喊着说：
以利！以利！拉马撒巴各大尼﹖
就是说：我的神！我的神！为什么离弃我﹖
而是出自神圣洁的仇恨，全部的、强烈的…
针对你的愤怒…
针对你的罪…
我，我的罪，
一位圣洁神，不能不发出他的忿怒…
他倾到在他自己的儿子身上！
正如先知在以赛亚书53章10节所说：
“耶和华却定意将他压伤！”耶和华…
将他压伤，
在那强烈的忿怒之下！
你们当中许多人读过圣经，
他在客西马尼园时喊道：
“求你叫这杯离开我…求你将这杯撤去…
求你叫这杯离开我…”
共三次，
你真以为我们的救主怕的是罗马人的长矛？
许多人以为耶稣所说的杯，指的是…
是十字架，
是鞭打，
和其它那些，
而且叫他滴下如大血点的汗珠，
真是这样吗？
那么，为什么除了约翰以外的其他使徒，
和无数的殉道者，
上十字架时…
教会历史告诉我们，他们喜乐地唱着诗歌，
因为能和主一样被钉十字架，
难道他们比他们的救主还勇敢？
耶稣在客西马尼园里，汗珠如大血点滴在地上，
不是因为害怕罗马人的刑具十字架，
是因为他原本一直在父怀里，
彼此之间有完美的喜悅，
他一直是神的爱子，神所喜悅的，
而在那十字架上时，神离弃他的儿子，
就像我们本该被离弃那样，
父亲压伤他的儿子！
这是那杯所代表的，
全能神针对我们犯的每一个罪所发出的忿怒，
他全都喝下去了，
而当他喊着说“成了！”
他把杯倒过来，一滴也不剩，
他全都喝下去了，
付清了罪债，
然后，断气而死，
第三天复活，
靠他自己的大能，
靠圣灵的大能，
靠天父的大能，
他复活了；
罗马书告诉我们，这是一个记号，
神证实了他儿子的清白，
证实了他在各各他上受的苦，足以付清你的罪债；
所以，相信耶稣是弥赛亚有什么意义？
相信他是神的儿子，
并不仅仅是：“我爱他的教导，所以我跟随他。”
而是：
我一无所有，
没有公义，
没有盼望，
除了神在各各他为我做的一切，
和耶稣从死里的复活，
那是我的盼望。
如果我在一群罪大恶极的人当中，
在贼窝里，
我站在当中，
我现在就被放在那儿，
在那地方，
唯一让我与那地方无关…
从神的眼光，
使我与那些人分別…唯有各各他的十字架，
在那儿，耶稣基督为了我的罪而死。
我要告诉你的是，
若你想加上任何你以为的功德，
你就不相信神的儿子，
我听过太多人说：
“是，我是基督徒。”
“你相信耶稣？”
“是的。”
“那么，如果你现在死，会去哪儿？”
“嗯，我想我上天堂吧！”
“为什么呢？”
“嗯，我还不错，
我还算是个好人。”
你看出问题了？
什么？
什么？
你还算是个好人？
是吗？
真的吗？
好到敢把你的每个念头带到神面前…
而不怕失去永恒？
有些人会说…
就如在罗马书第5、6两章里，那些人说的…
保罗的回答：
“如果你说只需要相信耶稣，而不靠我们所做的，
那么人们只要相信耶稣，
继续过邪恶的生活，然后上天堂？”
“绝对不是如此！”
圣经里有两个教义，你一定要明白，
第一个是「称义」，
什么是称义？
是一个法律地位的宣告，
相信耶稣基督的人，在神面前被称为义了，
在神看来，这人算是义的，
不是因为他的任何美德，
而是基于耶稣为他所做的，
神宣称他为义，
那是信徒的地位。
但是还有另外一个教义，
称为「重生」的教义，
如果你读过圣经，读过哥林多后书5章17节：
“若有人在基督里，就是新造的人，
旧事已过，都变成新的了。”
这是什么意思呢？
意思是，那些真正相信耶稣基督的人，
已经重生了，或说被圣灵重生了，
他们活过来了；
所以并不是他们相信耶稣…
然后做了一堆他们不情愿做的善事；
而是他们相信耶稣，他们被救，
因着这救赎…
因着神改变生命的大能，
他们开始活出新的生命，
他们在神面前的地位，绝不建立在他们所做的事上，
而是建立在各各他的十字架上，
基督，唯独基督。
我要用一个例子做结束，
希望说的不是你，
但是可以帮助你了解我所说的，
这是我从我的好友李查理那儿听到的，
是个很好的例子；
假如说，我们有一群羊，
我们还有个问题…那儿有一群狼，
怎么办呢？
有几个方法可以解决这个问题，
一个是…
我们可以用枪把那群狼杀了，
这样解决了羊的顾虑，
解决了我们的顾虑，
但没有解决狼的（本质）问题。
我们还有什么其他办法呢？
我们可以用个笼子，
我们可以把狼关起来，
把他关起来，
这样我们解决了羊的问题，
也解决了我们的问题，
但还是没有解决狼的问题，
你说：“他已经不一样了。”
不，他没有，
他只不过是被关起来了，
他没有变，
他在那笼子里走来走去，
像这样走来走去，
只想从笼子里出来，
只要你一开门，
他就出来了，
所以我们并没有解决他的问题，
你明白我所形容的吗？
宗教！
基督教！
我上教会…但我满心不情愿！
我去，因为是件好事，
我做，是因为应该这样做、不得不做。
没有对神的真爱，
没有真心事奉他的意愿，
我不得不做这些！
这是律法主义，
是宗教，
是基督教，
我们为什么ㄧ定要去？
正如那狼说：
“为什么我不能吃那些羊？”
一旦没人注意，
一旦门是开着的，
你就把羊吃了，
你就去犯罪，因为那是你所爱的。
什么是基督信仰呢？
神「改变」狼，
把他变成羊，
那是基督信仰，
从里面…
他改变人心，
他把石头心拿出来，
给他们新的肉心，
因此你就知道你成了基督徒，
而不是你曾做过什么空泛的告白：
“是，我信耶稣是神的儿子。”
乃是因为那曾经发生在彼得身上的事发生了，
“不是属血肉的…
而是天上的父指示的…（耶稣）是神的儿子。”
他给了你一个无法抗拒的意念…
要跟随他、
讨他喜悅，
你明白吗？
我现在就可以给你讲解本体论，
是这样的：
我有本质，
我有意志，
我有活动，也就是我所做的一切；
如果我的心喜爱邪恶，
我的意念倾向邪恶…
属世的一切…
不道德的…
情欲的…
钱财等等…一切属世的，
如果这是我心所爱，
这些意念，
引响我的意志，
我的意志促成我的活动，
我被驱使，
被我的意志所驱使，
我的意志被我的恶念控制，
所以我行恶；
然而，如果有人改变我的心，
以至于原来我所爱的，现在恨恶，
我原来所恨恶的，例如「义」，
我现在喜爱，
这之后，就没有什么好担心的，
因为新的意念驱动我的生活，
往一个完全不同的方向，
如果我犯罪，我会非常伤心，
因为我的心已被更新了。
Paul Washer – The Gospel of Christ Powerfully Saves
I’m going to give you the hardest,
greatest, problem in all of Scripture.
This is it.
If you’ve been here in this church you’ve
heard it a million times
but some of you haven’t,
so the people in this church are going to
hear it a million and one times now.
This is the greatest problem in the Bible:
If God is good He can’t forgive you.
If God is righteous and Holy,
He cannot forgive you.
And you say “What?!”
That’s it, really.
The greatest problem in all of Scripture…
we see it in Exodus,
we see it in Psalms.
We even see it in the book of Proverbs.
We see Paul dealing with it in Romans Chapter 3.
And it is this problem:
If God is just how can He,
just simply,
as He says,
turn His back to your sin.
How can He cover your sin?
How can He cast your sin away from you as
far as the east is from the west?
Literally, in the book of Psalms, and again in Romans
Chapter 4.
It is He “covers it!”
What do we think about a judge who sweeps
crimes under the rug?
Do we call Him righteous?
No we don’t, do we.
We call him corrupt.
Is he maintaining righteousness?
Absolutely not!
He is defaming righteousness.
You see there in lies the great problem in
the Bible.
God is righteous!
And because He is righteous,
and because He is holy.
And guess what?
Because He is love, He hates.
He hates evil.
Some people say,
“Well God is love therefore He doesn’t hate.”
No God is love, and therefore He must hate.
He hates evil.
He can’t just turn His back on evil.
And He can’t just turn His back on your evil.
Or my evil
or on anyone elses evil.
God is a righteous judge.
And shall not the judge of all of the earth
do right?
So the great question in the Bible is:
How can God be just and yet simply forgive wicked
men?
How can He do it?
The answer is in the person of Jesus Christ.
And this is what so many people do not understand
about the Cross.
God in His righteousness condemns man.
Every man, everyone here,
everyone who has ever walked the planet since
Adam.
Condemned, in our sin.
And all of the religion, all of the church
going,
everything else that you might want to add to it.
It’s not going to help you one bit.
Your condemned.
To be in heaven you must be perfect.
Have perfect righteousness,
and none of us have that!
And God cannot do it any other way
because He is righteous!
He cannot sweep your sin in a basket
or under a rug.
So God in His righteousness condemns you
and me and all have humanity.
And than God in His love becomes a man
and He lives the life you could not live.
The life that I could not live.
Not only is He avoiding sin.
But at the same time He is living a life of
perfect righteousness.
Not only avoiding the negative,
but always doing the positive.
A perfect righteous life.
And than that Son of God, He goes to Calvary.
And on Calvary He dies!
But now here is the problem.
When you hear all of those Easter sermons and everything else,
mainly what do you hear?
You hear about the Romans nailing Him to a
tree and
beating Him and stabbing Him with a lance.
And you hear about all of the things that
the Romans did to Jesus
and it killed Him.
And when you hear that kind of preaching,
that kind of preaching is totally missing
the point!
We are not saved from our sins because the
Romans beat up Jesus
and killed Him!
We are saved from our sins because when He was
on the tree
all of your sin was imputed to Him,
and than God in heaven turned away from His
only Son –
not because He lacked the moral fortitude
to see Him suffer –
No!
He turned away from His only Son because His
only Son became sin!
And the separation from God, that you should experience
that I should experience
throughout all of eternity.
The Son of God experienced on that tree!
And then there was not just the negative withdraw
of God’s presence
from Christ so that He cried out “Eli, Eli,
lema sabachthani?”
My God, my God why have you forsaken me?
But then all the full force of God’s wrath
of His holy hatred against you.
And your crimes.
And me, and my crimes.
That as a Holy God He must pour out.
He poured out on His own Son!
As the prophet in Isaiah 53 verse 10 says:
And it pleased the Lord to crush the Messiah!
To crush Him
under the full force of His wrath!
You know, many of you have read the Bible.
He is in the garden and He cries out
“Let this cup pass from me, let this cup pass
from me, let this cup pass from me.”
Three times.
Do you honestly think that our Savior was
afraid of a Roman lance?
So many people think that when Jesus is looking
at this cup
He is thinking about the Cross,
and the beatings
and everything else.
And it causes Him to sweat drops of blood.
Really?
How is it than that all of the apostles but
John,
and countless of martyrs,
went to the Cross
and church history tells us they were singing
hymns.
They were full of joy at being crucified like
their Lord.
So how is it that they had more boldness than
their Savior?
Jesus was not sweating drops of blood in the
garden
simply because of a roman cross.
It was because He had always dwelt in the
bosom of the Father
perfect delight between one another.
He had always been the beloved Son in whom
the Father was well pleased.
And on that tree the Father withdrew His presence
from His Son,
as He should from us.
And His Father crushed His Son!
That’s what was in the cup.
The wrath of almighty God against every sin
that we’ve committed.
And He drank it down.
And when He cried out “It is finished!”
He turned the cup over and not one drop came
out.
He drank it all.
Paid in full.
And He died.
And on the third day He was raised.
By His own power,
by the Spirit’s power.
By the power of the Father,
He was raised.
And Romans tells us that that is God’s sign,
that it is God’s vindication of His Son and proof
that the death He died on Calvary was sufficient
to pay for all your sins.
So what does it mean to believe that Jesus
is the Messiah,
the Son of God.
It’s not just “I love His teachings and I
follow Him.”
It is this:
I have nothing,
I have no righteousness,
I have no hope,
except what God did for me on Calvary.
And in the resurrection of Christ from the
dead.
That is my hope.
If I stood in the midst of the most horribly
wicked people
in a massive den of iniquity.
And I stood there,
and I was translated there right now,
to that place.
The only place that separates from me,
in the eyes of God,
from them, is the Cross of Calvary.
Where Jesus Christ died for my sins.
And I want to tell you something:
If you add any your supposed virtue to that,
you do not believe in the Son of God.
I hear so many people
“Ya, I’m a Christian.”
You are believing in Jesus?
“Yes I am.”
Well, if you died right now where would you go?
“Well I think I would go to heaven.”
Why?
“Well, I’ve been good.”
“I’ve been a good person.”
Do you see the disconnect?
What!?!?!
What?!?
You’ve been a good person?
Really?
Really?
Good enough to take any one of those thoughts and stand before God
and risk all of eternity on it?
Some people will say,
and they said this in Romans 5 and in Romans
6.
That is what Paul was answering to.
“If your saying it is just faith in Jesus
and not our works
than people will just believe in Jesus
and live like the devil and they’re going to heaven.”
Absolutely not!
You see there are two doctrines in the Bible
that you need to understand.
The first one is justification.
What is justification?
It is a legal declaration.
The person who believes in Jesus Christ is
legally justified before God.
God looks at this person as right with Him
not on the basis of their virtue
but on the basis of what Christ did for them.
God declares them righteous.
That’s the believer’s standing.
But than there is another doctrine
called the doctrine of regeneration.
If you’ve read the Bible you’ve heard it in
2 Corinthians 5:17
If any man be in Christ he is a new creation
old things pass away behold all things are
new.
What does that mean?
It means that those who truly believe in Jesus
Christ have also
been born again, or what we call regenerated
by the Holy Spirit.
They’ve been made alive.
So that it is not them believing in Jesus
and than doing a bunch of righteous things
that they hate.
But it’s their believing in Jesus and their
saved
and because of that salvation
and because of the power of God to transform
a life
they now begin to walk in newness of life
But never is their standing before God based
upon what they do
it’s based upon the Cross of Calvary.
Christ and Christ alone.
Now I’m going to finish with an illustration.
Hopefully it doesn’t apply to you
but it may give you some insight into what
I’m talking about.
I first heard this from a dear friend of mine
Charles Leiter.
It’s a wonderful illustration.
Let’s say that we own a bunch of sheep.
And we’ve got a problem, there are a bunch
of coyotes.
Now how do we solve the problem?
Well, there are a few ways we can solve the
problem.
One is:
we can get a gun and shoot the coyotes.
Now that solves the sheep’s problem
solves our problem,
but it doesn’t solve the coyotes problem.
What else can we do?
Well, we can get a cage
and we can trap the coyote.
We can trap him.
So we’ve solved the sheep’s problem,
we’ve solved our problem.
But we really haven’t solved the coyotes problem.
You say, “Well he is reformed!”
No he is isn’t.
He is just caged.
He is not reformed.
He walks back and forth in that cage
back and forth like this
and just wanting to get out.
You let that door open
and he is coming out of there.
So we haven’t solved his problem.
Do you know what I just described?
Religion.
And a lot of Christian religion.
“I go to church, I hate it,
but I’m going because it’s the right thing
to do.”
“I do this because it’s the right thing to
do and because I gotta do it.”
There is no really love for God.
There is no genuine desire to serve Him.
“I’ve just got to do these things!”
That’s legalism.
That’s religion.
That’s church.
“Why do we have to go?”
It’s the same way as the coyote saying
“Why can’t I just eat sheep?”
And every time someone is not looking
and every time that door is open
your going to eat sheep.
Your going to sin because that is what you
love.
Now what is Christianity?
God changes the coyote
into a sheep.
That’s Christianity.
From the inside
He changes their heart
He takes out their heart of stone
and He gives them a heart of flesh.
And that’s how you know you’ve become a Christian.
Not just because you give some empty profession
that
“Ya I believe Jesus is the son of God.”
But because something, as it happened to Peter,
something more than flesh and blood happened
to you.
God showed you, this is His Son
and He put an overwhelming, new desire in you
to follow Him
and to please Him.
Do you see that?
I’ll give you a lecture right now in ontology.
And it’s this.
I have a nature.
I have a will.
And I have activity, things I do.
If my heart loves evil,
my desire is for evil.
Things of this world,
the immoralities,
the sensuality’s,
the money, everything that is in this world.
If that is what my heart loves,
than those desires,
they influence my will,
and my will pushes my activities.
I’m driven, I’m driven
by my will.
That is driven by my evil desires.
And I do evil.
But if someone can change this heart of mine
so that the things I once loved I now hate.
And the things I once hated, like righteousness,
I now love.
There’s not much to worry about after that
because my new desires push my life
in a completely different direction.
And when I do sin it breaks my heart
because my heart has been made new.
Paul Washer’s Bio
保罗-大卫-华许（Paul David Washer，1961年出生），美国新教基督教传道人，加尔文主义神学，隶属于南方浸信会。
保罗华许在德克萨斯大学奥斯汀分校学习成为一名石油和天然气律师时皈依了基督教。他搬到秘鲁，在那里当了10年传教士。 1988年，在秘鲁期间，Washer 成立了 HeartCry 传教协会，以支持土著传教士向本民族文化的人作见证。Washer 后来回到美国，自2010年起居住在弗吉尼亚州的拉德福德，继续担任 HeartCry 的传教主任。
