May 21
3
His master-purpose!
(Charles Spurgeon, “Christ’s Incarnation, the Foundation of Christianity”)
Let us gather with grateful boldness around the infant in the manger, and behold our God! “Thou shalt call His name Jesus, for He shall save His people from their sins!” Matthew 1:21
The great object of our Lord’s coming here was not to live, but to die.
He appeared, not so much to subdue sin by His teaching, or to manifest goodness, or to perfect an example for us to imitate—but “to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself.”
The modern teachers of error would thrust the substitutionary sacrifice of Jesus into the background—but our Lord placed it in the forefront. He came to take away our sins. Do not think of Jesus without remembering the design of His coming.
We preach Christ—so do a great many more. But, “we preach Christ crucified!” 1 Corinthians 1:23. We preach, concerning our Lord—His cross, His blood, His death! Upon the blood of His cross we lay great stress, extolling much “the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.”
“Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners,” by putting away their sin “by the sacrifice of Himself.”
We will not deny, or conceal, or depreciate His master-purpose—lest we be found guilty of trampling upon His blood, and treating it as an unholy thing.
“This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am chief” 1 Timothy 1:15