May 25
25
Sin is so evil that the Good God made a hell for the ones who commit sin to spend eternity! Sin is so evil that nothing but the death of the Son of God on the cross could put it away! Sin is so evil that it deceives us and makes us hardened toward the commission of it! How thankful we are for the Gospel promise, “Thou shalt call His Name JESUS, for He shall save His people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21).
Todd Nibert
We will not have peace of mind unless and until we come to believe that salvation is, indeed, entirely a matter of God’s grace from beginning to end. This is why the judgmental are always so fearful and angry and never at peace – one simply should not be judgmental of others while relying entirely on the grace of God for himself.
Joe Terrell
Substitution; The Heart of The Gospel
The ‘good news’ of the Gospel is that there is a Substitute who has stood in the place of every repentant sinner and bore the wrath of God in his place. He did this for all whom the Father had given Him from all eternity. It is for them that He prays in John 17. They are ‘His sheep’, the Father gave them to Him, and He died for them (John 10:15, 29).
Substitution is at the very heart of the Gospel. Christ did not simply give His life to make salvation possible for those who contribute their part to what He has done by repenting and trusting Christ. He it is that gives repentance and faith (2 Timothy 2:25; Ephesians 2:8).
Christ did not say to the religious Jews of His day that they were not of His ‘sheep’ because they did not believe; rather, He says, ‘Ye believe not, because you are not of my sheep’ (John 10:26). If they had been His sheep they would have believed. The ‘good news’ is that all whom the Father has given to the Son, and for whom He died will believe and manifest true repentance and faith. This they will do willingly and with gratitude in their hearts. It is God’s work. He cannot fail.
Bill Clark
Justice sheaths its
avenging sword in His heart!
(Henry Law, “Gleanings from the Book of Life”)
“For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew
no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.”
2 Cor. 5:21
It is a comforting thought, that the sins thus
removed from the guilty and transferred to the
guiltless, leave the real transgressor relieved
from the weight of evil.
Thus unrighteousness is removed.
Jesus thus laden with iniquities, endures
all that sin merits and the law denounces.
He approaches the altar of the Cross.
He there presents Himself the willing victim.
He there lays down His life, the all sufficient sacrifice.
He there sheds His blood, worthy to make atonement.
Wrath pours out on Him all its vials.
Justice sheaths its avenging sword in His heart!
The law pours on His head its total curse.
He endures to the uttermost all that justice required.
Where now are the believer’s sins?
That which is blotted out can no more be found.
None who are washed in His most precious blood
can be borne off to hell. Satan can offer no charge
against those on whom no sin is found.
‘He appeared to put away sin’ Heb 9:26
Don Fortner
In his life of obedience to the law of God Christ established righteousness for us. But that righteousness is not sufficient, in and of itself, to make us acceptable to God. Sin must be punished. Justice must be satisfied. Every guilty sinner must be put to death. The only way God could both punish us for sin and save us from sin was by the infinitely meritorious, voluntary and efficacious death, burial and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, our Substitute. For the accomplishment of our salvation Christ became ‘obedient unto death, even the death of the cross’.
God made his Son to be sin for us. Christ had no sin of his own. He had no original sin and no actual sin. He was ‘holy, harmless, undefiled and separate from sin.’ Yet he was made sin. By divine imputation, all the sin of all God’s elect was laid upon Christ our Substitute. Christ ‘his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree’. This transfer of sin from us to our Substitute was so real and complete that the Son of God became sin for us! He even claimed our sin as his own, willingly assuming all responsibility for the sins of his people.
God the Son, being made sin, died as our Substitute. When God found sin on his Son, he cried out to his own holy law and inflexible justice: ‘Awake, O sword, against my shepherd, and against the man that is my fellow … smite the shepherd!’ Then and there all the sin of all God’s elect was slain, annihilated forever and taken away. Justice, being fully satisfied, forever sheathed its dreadful sword. Wrath, being completely spent upon Christ, is altogether absorbed in Christ for all his people. In so far as God’s law and justice are concerned, all of God’s elect have died. We died in Christ our Substitute.
In Christ all who believe are completely justified. His precious blood has forever washed away our sins, so that we are justly pardoned and forgiven. His life of righteousness has been imputed to us, so that we are perfectly holy in God’s sight. In Christ we have all that God in his law demands for our acceptance, complete satisfaction for sin and perfect righteousness.
“The Scapegoat”
Leviticus 16:8
The scapegoat beautifully portrays our dear Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ. As the slain goat portrays him as the Lamb sacrificed for our sins, the scapegoat portrays him as the sacrifice accepted. The scapegoat is a picture of the complete removal of our sins by Christ. The first goat, the Lord’s goat, the slain victim, gave us a picture of the atonement. The second goat, the scapegoat, gives us a picture of the result of the atonement.
A Fit Man
With all the sins of Israel made his, the scapegoat was taken away by a fit man. That fit man is the Judge of all the earth who must do right, the very justice of God. The scapegoat is borne beyond the camp—beyond all sight—beyond the track of man—to the far borders of an uninhabited land. Released, it disappears in rocks and thickets of an uninhabited desert. Unseen, unknown, forgotten, it departs from mortal view. It is now buried in oblivion’s land.
Full Pardon
There is no brighter picture of the full pardon of all sin in Christ. Christ bore the accursed load of all my sin and guilt away, as far away as the east is from the west; and God’s all-seeing eye cannot find it.
Oh, precious tidings! Oh, heart-cheering truth! Oh, wondrous grace! God the Spirit, by the testimony of the gospel, proclaims this good news and confirms it in the soul by the gift of life and faith in Christ. God has cast our sins, all our sins, behind his back and into the depth of the sea of infinite forgetfulness! As we watch that fit Man and the Scapegoat, Christ Jesus, the horizon recedes. Infinite separation has infinitely separated our transgressions from us! Christ, our Scapegoat, has borne our iniquities away (Psalm 103:12; Isaiah 38:17; Micah 7:19).
Can we recover what the ocean buries? No line can reach to the unmeasured depths. It has sunk downward, never to arise. Deep waters hide it; and it must be hidden. Such is the grave of sin. Our Scapegoat drowned it in a fathomless abyss. The word is sure. “Thou wilt cast all their sins into the depths of the sea!“
Can that be seen to which the eye of omniscience is blind? Are objects visible which are behind your back? Our Scapegoat has cast our sins behind God’s back! He has blotted out, as a thick cloud, our transgressions (Isaiah 44:22), and can never find them (Jeremiah 50:20).
Not Remembered
That which Christ has taken away, blotted out, and removed by his precious, sin-atoning blood, God cannot and will not remember. He promised, “I will remember their sin no more” (Jeremiah 31:34). Do you need comfort? Drink deeply from this stream of joy. Lay down in this green pasture of delight. Your sins, so many, vile, and hateful, your Scapegoat has taken away. All your blemishes, defects, iniquities, transgressions, and sins are forever gone! And God your Saviour. God, who cannot lie, says to you, “Thou art all fair, my love; there is no spot in thee” (Song of Solomon 4:7).
Don Fortner
All glory to the gospel of Free Grace!
(Henry Law, “The Raven” 1869)
Christ is the sum and substance of the Bible!
Christ . . .
chosen,
sent,
anointed,
accepted of God.
Christ wondrous in His person, the mighty
God, therefore infinitely glorious to save.
Christ loving from everlasting to
everlasting, with love knowing . . .
no origin,
no end,
no intermission,
no degrees;
with love always . . .
unchangeably the same,
perfect,
pure,
intense,
enduring.
Christ hanging on the accursed tree, laying
down His life a sufficient ransom price.
Christ by His death . . .
closing the gates of hell,
quenching God’s fiery wrath,
paying all demands,
satisfying every claim,
glorifying every attribute,
washing out each crimson stain of all His ransomed flock.
Christ gloriously fulfilling every iota of the glorious
Law, saying to each command, ‘I fully have obeyed’;
and then transferring the vicarious obedience, as
divine righteousness, to His bride the Church, as
her robe for heaven; her lustre in the courts above.
Christ purchasing the Holy Spirit, and sending
Him to bless the Church with all His powers . . .
to teach,
to sanctify,
to comfort,
to adorn,
to beautify.
Christ rising from the grave, a proof that God is
satisfied, and all redemption fully earned; a pledge
that the ransomed in their turn shall put on the
beauties of a resurrection body, worthy of a
resurrection state.
Christ ascending . . .
to the right hand of the Majesty on high;
representing all His people in Himself;
bearing their names upon His heart;
receiving all gifts for them;
pouring down all blessings on them.
Christ coming . . .
to institute a glorious reign,
to change the living,
to raise the dead,
to execute eternal judgment,
to fill all heaven with glory,
to awaken the eternal song of never ending hallelujahs!
O my soul, what a flood of tidings of great joy!
All things are yours!
The world!
Things present!
Things to come!
All are yours!
All glory to the gospel of Free Grace!
If you want to see what sin really is
(J.C.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 colours 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,
agonising 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.
It quenches the thirst
of the soul
(Horatius Bonar, “The Revelation of Jesus Christ”)
“My blood is drink indeed!” John 6:55
The blood of the Lamb contains the true drink for the
soul. It quenches the thirst of the soul—the thirst
of parching produced by an evil conscience and a sense
of wrath. It removes the wrath and the sense of wrath,
by showing us that wrath transferred to the Substitute.
It relieves the conscience when first we come into
contact with it; and it keeps it relieved from day
to day, as we drink it by faith.
It is ‘the true drink.’
It calms!
It revives!
It refreshes!
It soothes!
It is like cold water to the thirsty lips under a
scorching sun. Nothing but the blood can allay
this thirst; nothing else can be . . .
drink for the soul,
drink for the intellect,
drink for the conscience,
drink for the heart!