If you want to see what sin really is

If you want to see what sin really is

(Philpot, “Sin Condemned and Righteousness Fulfilled”)

To cast the sinning angels out of heaven;

to banish Adam from Paradise;

to destroy the old world by a flood;

to burn Sodom and Gomorrah with fire from heaven–

these examples of God’s displeasure against sin were

not sufficient to express His condemnation of it. He

would therefore take another way of making it manifest.

And what was this?

By sending His own Son out of His bosom, and offering

Him as a sacrifice for sin upon the tree at Calvary, He

would make it manifest how He abhorred sin, and how

His righteous character must forever condemn it.

See here the love of God to poor guilty man in not

sparing His own Son; and yet the hatred of God against

sin, in condemning it in the death of Jesus.

It is almost as if God said, “If you want to see what

sin really is, you cannot see it in the depths of hell. I

will show you sin in blacker colors still– you shall see

it in the sufferings of My dear Son; in His agonies of

body and soul; and in what He as a holy, innocent

Lamb endured under My wrath, when He consented

to take the sinner’s place.”

What wondrous wisdom,

what depths of love,

what treasures of mercy,

what heights of grace

were thus revealed and brought to light in God’s

unsparing condemnation of sin, and yet in His

full and free pardon of the sinner!

If you have ever had a view by faith of the suffering

Son of God in the garden and upon the cross; if you

have ever seen the wrath of God due to you, falling

upon the head of the God-Man; and viewed a bleeding,

agonizing Immanuel; then you have seen and felt in

the depths of your conscience what a dreadful thing

sin is. Then the broken-hearted child of God looks

unto Him whom he has pierced, and mourns and grieves

bitterly for Him, as for a firstborn son who has died.

Under this sight he feels what a dreadful thing sin is.

“Oh,” he says, “did God afflict His dear Son? Did

Jesus, the darling of God, endure all these sufferings

and sorrows to save my soul from the bottomless pit?

O, can I ever hate sin enough? Can I ever grieve and

mourn over it enough? Can my stony heart ever be

dissolved into contrition enough, when by faith I see

the agonies, and hear the groans of the suffering,

bleeding Lamb of God?”

Christians hate their sins. They hate that sinful, that

dreadfully sinful flesh of theirs which has so often,

which has so continually, betrayed them into sin.

And thus they join with God in passing condemnation

upon the whole of their flesh; upon all its actings and

workings; upon all its thoughts and words and deeds;

and hate it as the prolific parent of that sin which

crucified Christ, and torments and plagues them.

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