Aug 26
23
I was as truly in Christ’s loins so that “I am crucified with Christ!”, as I was in Adam’s loins so that I sinned and died. The apostle Paul did not say it was “as if” I was crucified with Christ. He said, “I AM crucified with Christ.” That is emphatic, dogmatic language. If God has given you faith in Christ then apply this emphatic, dogmatic language to yourself, “Likewise RECKON ye also yourselves to be DEAD INDEED unto sin, but ALIVE UNTO GOD THROUGH JESUS CHRIST OUR LORD” (Rom 6:11).
Clay Curtis
IMPUTATION
Romans 5:13: (For until the law sin was in the world: but sin is not imputed when there is no law. 14: Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam’s transgression…
God gave these verses to show that God imputed sin to us because when Adam sinned, we sinned (v12). That is how God imputes. God imputes what a man has been made by a prior act. These verses declare that. “For until the law sin was in the world”—from the garden until Mt Sinai, God gave no law, yet men sinned—“but sin is not imputed when there is no law”—God is righteous. God will not impute sin unless a man has really been made sin under law—”Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses”—it means God imputed sin to them, that is why death reigned over them—“even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam’s transgression.”—even over them that had not sinned by breaking a known law as Adam did in the garden.But how was God just to impute sin to them if they did not break a known law as Adam did?Because in Adam all really have sinned. That is the point of these verses.
God only imputes to a man what the man has been made by a prior act. Creeds and tradition teach otherwise but we bow to God’s word. Let’s see a few examples. In Leviticus 17: 4 if a man kills an animal and does not offer an offering to the Lord then blood shall be imputed to the man. Why? He hath shed blood; it is fact. In 2 Samuel 4: 2 and Josuah 18: 25 the people imputed the town of Beeroth as belonging to Benjamin because Joshua had given Beroth to Benjamin; it was fact. Read 1 Samuel 22: 15; 2 Samuel 19: 19-20; Psalm 106:30-31; 1 Corinthians 4:1; 2 Peter 3: 15. In each scripture, imputation is imputing what is fact. Men may impute to another what is not true, as Saul did to Elimelech, but that is unjust imputation; it does not make the person be what was unjustly imputed to them. God only imputes what a person has been made by a prior act.
God imputed sin to us because Adam made us sin. God imputed sin to Christ because “he hath made him sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.” God imputes righteousness to his saints because Christ made us righteous.
Clay Curtis
WHAT A BOUNDLESS, FATHOMLESS OCEAN!
Eternal love moved the heart of Jesus to relinquish heaven for earth—a diadem for a cross—the robe of divine majesty for the garment of our nature; by taking upon Himself the leprosy of our sin. Oh, the infinite love of Christ! What a boundless, fathomless ocean! Ask the ransomed of the Lord, whose chains He has dissolved, whose dungeon He has opened, whose liberty He has conferred, if there ever was love like His!
What shall we say of the ransom price? It was the richest, the costliest, that Heaven could give. He gave Himself for us! What more could He do? He gave Himself; body, soul and spirit. He gave His time, His labor, His blood, His life, His ALL, as the price for our ransom, the cost of our redemption. He carried the wood and reared the altar. Then, bearing His bosom to the stroke of the uplifted and descending arm of the Father, paid the price of our salvation in the warm lifeblood of His heart!
What a boundless, fathomless ocean! How is it that we feel the force and exemplify the practical influence of this amazing, all commanding truth so faintly? Oh, the desperate depravity of our nature! Oh, the deep iniquity of our iniquitous hearts! Will not the blood drops of Jesus move us? Will not the agonies of the cross influence us? Will not His dying love constrain us to a more heavenly life?
Octavius Winslow
LOVE SUFFERING, AND BLEEDING, AND EXPIRING!
The love of Christ! Such a precious theme! Of it can we ever weary? Never! Its greatness can we ever know? Never! Its plenitude can we fully contain? Never! Its depths cannot be fathomed, its dimensions cannot be measured! It passes knowledge! All that Jesus did for His people was but the unfolding and expression of His love.
Traveling to Bethlehem—I see love incarnate! Tracking His steps as He went about doing good—I see love labouring! Visiting the house of Bethany—I see love sympathising! Standing by the grave of Lazarus—I see love weeping! Entering the gloomy precincts of Gethsemane—I see love sorrowing! Passing on to Calvary—I see love suffering, and bleeding, and expiring! The whole scene of His life is but an unfolding of the deep, and awesome, and precious mystery of redeeming love!
Octavius Winslow
“Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God. 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 Corinthians 5:20-21
The heart of the gospel is redemption, and the essence of redemption is the substitutionary sacrifice of Christ. They who preach this truth preach the gospel, in whatever else they may be mistaken. But they who preach not the atonement, whatever else they declare, have missed the soul and substance of the divine message. In these days I feel bound to go over and over again the elementary truths of the gospel. In peaceful times we may feel free to make excursions into interesting districts of truth which lie far afield; but now we must stay at home, and guard the hearths and homes of the church by defending the first principles of the faith. In this age there have risen up in the church itself men who speak perverse things. There be many that trouble us with their philosophies and novel interpretations, whereby they deny the doctrines they profess to teach, and undermine the faith they are pledged to maintain. It is well that some of us, who know what we believe, and have no secret meanings for our words, should just put our foot down and maintain our standing, holding forth the word of life, and plainly declaring the foundation truths of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
C.H.Spurgeon
IT IS THE BLOOD THAT SAVES
Octavius Winslow
“And He said unto them, This is My blood of the new testament, shed for many.”–Mark 14:24
Never did those lips, upon which grace shed its divinest, sweetest fragrance, utter words so precious as these. The language is figurative, but the truth is literal. “This is My blood,” or, this cup is the ’emblem’ of “My blood of the new testament,” the new covenant, “shed for many,” for the sins of beings whom no man can number. We are thus brought into contact with the most essential and vital doctrine of the Bible, the great Atonement of the Son of God. Beloved, the blood of Jesus is very precious to a poor, guilt-burdened sinner. It is the blood that saves him. There is everything you need in the blood of Jesus, forgiveness for every guilt-burdened, healing for every sin-wounded conscience.
The blood of Jesus speaks peace, the blood brings us into the holiest, and places us in the very presence of the Father. It is the blood that keeps the heart pure, and supplies it with the most powerful motive to holiness. It is the blood that sustains the soul in death, and after death places it before the throne in robes washed white, with the “new song” breathing from its joyous lips. My soul, consider the blood of Jesus in two or three essential points of light.
It is the blood of the Incarnate God. Herein lies its intrinsic worth, its essential efficacy. The Deity of the Saviour gave it all its merit to atone, and all its virtue to cleanse. We marvel not that the apostle should denominate it, “the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish.” It is the most precious thing in the universe–it is the precious blood of Him whose person is precious to those who believe. Is it, my soul, precious to you?
And, then, remember that faith alone is necessary to make its saving virtue ours. Believe only, and all the sovereign efficacy of Christ’s blood is ours. This “precious blood” and “precious faith” constitute the two most precious things in the universe.
Look at it, also, as applied blood. We know that the blood of the paschal lamb would have availed nothing to the Israelites when the angel of death swept through the land to slay the first-born of the Egyptian, had it not been really and visibly sprinkled upon their dwellings. It was the applied blood that saved them. So must it be with the blood of Jesus, our Passover slain for us. If we want to be placed in a state of non-condemnation, if we desire to be quite sure that we are safe from eternal death, the blood of Jesus must be applied to the conscience. Rest not short of this, my soul! Clearly this is the mind of the Spirit in those remarkable words of the apostle, “You are come to the blood of sprinkling.” There is a present coming to the blood of Jesus, and this gives us a present salvation.
It is the blood of Jesus that sanctifies. It sets us apart as a holy people for God, it cleanses the heart from vain thoughts, worldly imaginations, and impure desires–from the taint and defilement of indwelling sin. Rest not short, then, of the applied blood of Jesus. This will remove all your doubts, quell all your fears, and bring you into perfect peace. The Holy Spirit is prepared to take of the blood of the covenant, and sprinkle it upon your heart, and then all will be peace.
The blood will give you great power in prayer. Coming to God with this plea, you may open all your heart to Him, confess every sin, disclose every sorrow, make known every need, and reveal, as in the light of the noontide sun, every secret cloistered there.
In a word, it is the blood of Jesus that SAVES, saves us from a present condemnation, and saves us to a future and eternal salvation. There is no salvation elsewhere. Here is pardon for the vilest sinner, for the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses from all sin. Yes, dear Lord! it is Your blood, Your own blood, possessing all the dignity and virtue of Your Godhead, and this will be my song and my joy through eternity, “Unto Him who loved us, and washed us from our sins IN HIS OWN BLOOD, and has made us kings and priests unto God and His Father–to Him be glory forever and ever. Amen.”
Universal Redemption?
by Don Fortner
When the Lord Jesus Christ poured out his life’s
blood at Calvary, he did not make salvation a
possibility, but a reality. He obtained eternal
redemption for God’s elect.
Any doctrine which says that Christ wants to save
those who perish, tries to save those who perish,
and provides salvation for those who perish is
nonsense, theological rubbish, and blasphemy.
Jesus Christ is God almighty!
He is not a whining wimp. What he wants to do he
does (Isa. 46:10). He never tries to do anything.
He simply does what he will. His grace, his power,
and even his will are irresistible.
(Ps. 135:6; Dan. 4:34-35).
If he wanted to save everybody in the world, where
is the force that could stop him from doing so?
Any man who worships a god who wants to do what
he cannot do, or tries to do what he fails to accomplish,
is a fool. Such a god, if he existed, would be as useless
as a lantern without oil, or a bucket without a bottom.
Failure is an embarrassment to man. How much more so
it would be to the eternal God.
The doctrine of universal redemption- that doctrine which
says that Christ wants to save everybody, tries to save
everybody, and provides salvation for everybody, tramples
the blood of Christ under foot, despises the work of Christ,
robs the Son of God of all glory in salvation, and puts him
to an open shame.
Those who say, “Jesus loves everybody and died for
everybody,” proclaim a love and a death which are
totally useless for anything more than sentimentalism.
They preach a redemption by which no one was redeemed.
Universal redemption is no redemption at all.
Redemption was effectually accomplished by Christ on
the cross (John 19:30; Heb. 9:12). And redemption is
effectually applied by Christ on the throne (John 17:2).
It never was our Lord’s intention,
desire, or purpose to save all men.
Struggling against the power of sin?
How many poor souls are struggling against the
power of sin, and yet never get any victory over it!
How many are daily led captive by . . .
the lusts of the flesh,
the love of the world,
and the pride of life,
and never get any victory over them!
How many fight and grapple with tears, vows,
and strong resolutions against their besetting
sins, who are still entangled and overcome by
them again and again! Now, why is this?
Because they do not know the secret of spiritual
strength against, and spiritual victory over them.
It is only by virtue of a living union with the
Lord Jesus Christ—drinking into His sufferings
and death—and receiving out of His fullness,
that we can gain any victory over . . .
the world,
sin,
death,
or hell.
Sin is never really or effectually subdued in any other way.
It is not by legalistic strivings and earnest resolutions,
vows, and tears—the vain struggle of ‘religious flesh’
to subdue ‘sinful flesh’—that can overcome sin.
But it is by a believing acquaintance with, and a
spiritual entrance into the sufferings and sorrows
of the Son of God—having a living faith in Him,
and receiving out of His fullness supplies of grace
and strength.
J.C.Philpot