BELOVED reader, the solemn and important question brought before you in the following paper is of the salvation of your soul. You are a sinner; I am a sinner. We are defiled by sin; we are guilty, for we have sinned against God, and against a God of love. Now sin must be put away, and we must be cleansed, if we are to dwell with a holy God, who is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity, and cannot look at sin.
He may look on us in compassion, sinners as we are; but He cannot allow uncleanness to abide in His presence, and you (unless you are already washed in the blood of the Lamb) are unclean—you know you are. You are guilty—you know you are. You would not like to hazard your salvation upon the judgment God ought to form of you. I know well our proud rebellious hearts may rise up against God, and reason against Him; but your conscience knows you have sinned against Him, and that if He be a holy God, He cannot, ought not to allow of sin, and let it into His presence. Yet there alone you can be really happy; and there, whether you will or not, you must come. It is not your reasonings about it which will prevent it. When there, reasonings will cease: your conscience will speak (as Adam’s did when he sought to hide himself in the trees of the garden), and louder too; he had broken God’s commandment, but he had not yet despised God’s goodness and grace to a sinner. May you be kept by grace from doing so!
Now I have no desire to weaken―God forbid! ―the thought that God is love. It is my only hope, for I also am a poor sinner. My only hope is in God’s free and perfect love. But then, that you may enjoy that love, you must have your sin put away, you must be cleansed. You could not be happy in God’s presence were it not put away; you could not, if your conscience always told you, You are unclean in the presence of this holy God, and He sees it. Would your child be happy with you if he had a bad conscience, be you ever so loving a father? Would it be true love if you were to allow him in the evil, and pass it over as no matter?
Now God tells us this plainly in order to act upon our consciences; He tells us He is light, and that darkness can have no communion with Him; that nothing defiled can enter into the heavenly Jerusalem, as it is called. He warns us that the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who hold the truth in unrighteousness. He says there is oppression and wrong, but encourages the Christian to the patience which Christ Himself showed. And how? By the solemn word, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord” (Rom. 12:1919Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord. (Romans 12:19)). He is a righteous Judge, as well as a God of love.
He takes notice of good and evil, and hence necessarily judges. Yet we are sinners, and, as regards such, what can righteousness do? But He is love. Does His love destroy his judgment against sin? does it put an end to His righteousness? No; that would not be grace and love, but indifference to evil; and would lead our hearts, alas! to be indifferent to it too. Why should not we be, if God were? But it would be a real curse to us, and He would not be really the true and holy God.
How then, if He be righteous, and judges sin, can He exercise love to us in all its fullness—towards us who are sinners? Now here it is the death and atonement of Christ come in. The blessed Lord willingly undertook this task, to glorify God perfectly, and prove infinite love to us, and yet maintain God’s perfect righteousness. He bore our sins―was made sin for us. He drank the bitter cup of death and judgment which our sins had filled. He gave Himself for us, and was bruised for our iniquities, and wounded for our transgressions. Was not this love? Oh! reader, was it not? Yet there God’s righteous judgment against sin was fully maintained, so that what I see there was not the least allowance of it. What could show it like the death of the Son of God when He was made sin for us? Could He not be spared? How then can any, persevering in rejecting mercy through Him? Was it possible this cup could pass unless He drank it? It could not. For whom then shall it if not drunk by Him?
And see how the notion of mere dying under the hands of wicked men destroys all the glory of the cross. I read, Christ gave Himself, offered up Himself. Here I find the holy perfectness of His own soul in a way that nothing else shows. What love! What devotedness! What giving Himself up to the Father’s glory! “No man taketh it from me,” says He, “but I lay it down of myself” (John 10:1818No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father. (John 10:18)). “The prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in me; but that the world may know that I love the Father, and as the Father hath given me commandment, even so I do” (John 14:30, 3130Hereafter I will not talk much with you: for the prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in me. 31But that the world may know that I love the Father; and as the Father gave me commandment, even so I do. Arise, let us go hence. (John 14:30‑31)). You will say, How could this glorify the Father―to give Himself up to a cruel death and wrath? Because of your sins; they made it necessary. If love was to be shown to you, it must be in this way. God’s holiness must be maintained―the impossibility of allowing sin. You (if indeed through grace you believe) are not to be taken away from before Him, because of your sins and defilement. Instead of that, as they could not be allowed, they were taken away, that you might be in peace before Him and know this God of love.” ‘God commendeth his love towards us, it that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us’ (Rom. 5:88But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5:8)), And see how the cross glorifies God in every thing, if I look at it as a sacrifice for sin, a; Christ giving Himself up, that God may be fully glorified. And how glorious Christ Himself if there by His doing it! for remember, if it was indeed a bitter cup, yet Christ never was so, glorified as there. Never was His glorious perfection so shown out; so that, though it may seem a hard task to impose on Him, yet it really was, as to His work, His greatest glory. As He says, “Now is the Son of man glorified, and God is glorified in him” (John 13:3131Therefore, when he was gone out, Jesus said, Now is the Son of man glorified, and God is glorified in him. (John 13:31)). For it was a glorious thing to Him who accomplished it, that, so to speak, God should be debtor for His glory to Him who thus gave Himself. For indeed it was a common counsel between the Father and the Son. God’s will was He should come, and His will was to come. “Lo, I come to do thy will” (Heb. 10:99Then said he, Lo, I come to do thy will, O God. He taketh away the first, that he may establish the second. (Hebrews 10:9)).
But see how He was glorified in it. Is God righteous in judgment against sin? The cross has fully shown it forth. Is God perfect love to the poor sinner? The cross has shown it forth. Did the majesty of God require that it should be vindicated against rebellious man? The cross has done it; yet the sinner is spared. Is God truth, and has said that death should follow sin, the devil saying, as he yet does, it should not? Where such a witness that it must, as when the blessed Son of God died as man on the cross? yet He has obtained for us life by it, beyond all the power of death and judgment. Were our sins pressing upon us, so that we did not dare look up? They are gone. I can see God in the light without fear: He has nothing to impute to me; He has proved His love, and I can enjoy Hip Jove. And just when man showed his hatred to God in slaying His Son, God has shown His love to man in giving Him to put away the sin shown in slaying Him. Where was obedience shown as on the cross? He was “obedient unto death, even the death of the cross” (Phil. 2:88And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. (Philippians 2:8)). Where love to us? Where the desire to glorify His Father? Thus the Son of man was glorified, and God, in every part of His nature, glorified in Him: His love, His righteousness, His truth, His majesty, all displayed.
And what is the consequence? The power and fear of death is gone to the believer. It is but the entrance into paradise for him. The sins that He feared as bringing judgment are taken away and blotted out. He knows God loves him—so loves him that He has not spared His own Son to save him; he knows that He has nothing to impute to him, for Christ has borne all. God is righteous and just to forgive him his sins.
And yet, is sin a light thing to one who has this perfect peace with the God of love? It has cost the death of the Son of God. True, it is put away; he is justified; he has perfect peace with God. But how? By that which makes sin the most frightful thing to his soul that possibly could be, and knits his heart to Jesus, who was willing to suffer thus to put it away.
Whether we think of God’s glory or Christ’s glory, or the practical effect on our hearts, it is Christ’s cross, as being a real sacrifice for sin, that is really efficacious. It glorifies God, infinitely honors Christ, and perfectly blesses man; telling him he is the object of God’s infinite love, and yet maintaining righteousness in his heart. Jesus was God manifest in the flesh; and, as to His person, supremely glorious in dignity. This indeed enabled Him to do such a work; but never, as to His work and service, was He so glorious as He was upon the cross. I speak to you feebly, beloved reader; but is it not the truth? ―words, as Paul says, of truth and soberness. And this thing was not done in a corner.
And now mark too the blessed efficacy of it for me, a poor sinner. There stood sin, death, judgment, just wrath, in my way. My conscience told me it was so, and God’s Word plainly declares it. Satan’s power bound it down, so to speak, upon my soul; while his temptations encouraged me to go on in what led to it. God’s law even did but make the matter worse for me, if I pretended to meddle with it, for its holiness condemned my transgressions. And now for him that believes all is taken out of the way. Sin gone, death gone as the terrible thing I awaited (Christ has turned it into a gain) ―I shall be with Christ; judgment, Christ has borne it; wrath, there is none for me: I am assured of perfect love. Christ, in making me partaker of the efficacy of His death, has set me beyond all these things in the light, as God is in the light (having loved me, and washed me from my sins in His own blood, and made me a king and a priest to God and His Father). In rising He has shown me this new place into which He has brought me, though as yet, of course, I have it only by faith and participation in that life, in the power of which He has risen. Yes, dear reader, the believer is saved, he has eternal life, he is justified; he waits, no doubt, to be glorified, but he knows Him who has obtained it all for Him, and that He is able to keep that which He has committed unto Him until that day.
There is a judgment (terrible it will be to them that have despised mercy and rejected the Saviour); but to those who, as poor sinners, have submitted to God’s righteousness, believing in His love, “Christ, will appear the second time, without sin unto salvation” (Heb. 9:2828So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation. (Hebrews 9:28)). That is, having quite put sin away for them the first time, He will come the, second time without having anything to say to it as to them, for their full possession of the glorious result. As He said Himself, “I go to prepare a place for you, and if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to myself, that where I am, there ye may be also” (John 14:2, 32In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. 3And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also. (John 14:2‑3)). That is a judgment, if such you will call it, which shall be the everlasting and infinite joy of them that share in it.
Weigh that passage I quoted just now. Christ has appeared “once in the end of the world... to put sway sin by the sacrifice of himself; and as it is appointed unto men once to die, and after this the judgment”―there is the natural portion of the sinner― “so Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many, and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation” (Heb. 9:26-2826For then must he often have suffered since the foundation of the world: but now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. 27And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment: 28So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation. (Hebrews 9:26‑28)). The first time He, came, He bore the sins; the second, He comes apart from that for the full salvation of them that look for Him.
Reader, are you prepared to give up all this for the notion that He fell a victim to self-seeking men who put Him to a violent death? Did He not offer Himself up as a sacrifice to put away sin? Did not the Lord bruise Him? Did He not say, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” (Matt. 27:4646And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? (Matthew 27:46).) Does not your soul need to have sin put away? Is not the love of God shown in the way you need it by Christ’s being thus given? Has He not glorified God in it? Has He not been glorified in it and by it, bitter as it was? Is it not peace to know He has done it, and put away sin for us by it? Does not the word so present it to us? The Lord give you to believe it in truth. It has given me peace, perfect yet increasing peace, these five-and-twenty years, while He has all the glory; and I know God is love, who has purged my conscience from sin. May you, dear reader, be enabled so to know it, and with as much joy! If you do, you know what I say is true. May the grace of God make Him, who has wrought it for us, more precious to us both I It is a blessing and a joy to think we shall have an eternity in which to praise Him for it.
Even if I think of the way good and evil were brought out by h, there is nothing like the cross. Everything moral is there brought to a glorious center, from which it flows down on every poor believing heart, in the proof that evil has been met and put away, and that good has triumphed. Where has death been shown in its terrible power as in the cross? Where has sin, in all its terrible character and effects? Where do I see man’s hatred against goodness itself, and the Son of God bearing sin before God, yet where was eternal life obtained for us, such as death can never touch? Where were goodness and love displayed as there? Where were righteousness and obedience accomplished in spite of all? Where was sin brought so immediately under God’s eye and punished as there? Yet where was it put away, and His perfect delight in absolute obedience at all cost, so drawn out? Where was the bowing in weakness under death shown as in Him whose soul was melted like wax in the midst of His bowels? yet where the divine strength which carried through all that weakness, death, man’s hatred, Satan’s power, and God’s wrath, could accumulate on His head who drank that bitter cup? All this is told us in Scripture. “He was crucified through weakness” (2 Cor. 13:44For though he was crucified through weakness, yet he liveth by the power of God. For we also are weak in him, but we shall live with him by the power of God toward you. (2 Corinthians 13:4)). “This is your hour and the power of darkness,” said the Lord (Luke 22:5353When I was daily with you in the temple, ye stretched forth no hands against me: but this is your hour, and the power of darkness. (Luke 22:53)). “My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death” (Matt. 26:3838Then saith he unto them, My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death: tarry ye here, and watch with me. (Matthew 26:38)). “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” (Matt. 27:4646And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? (Matthew 27:46)).
In a word, would I know what sin is? I look there; righteousness? I look there; hatred without a cause? I look there; love without bounds?
I look there; judgment and condemnation of sin? I look there; deliverance and peace? I look there; divine wrath against evil? I look there; perfect divine favor and delight in what infinitely glorified God? I look there. Weakness and death, though willingly bowing under it, it is there; strength, divine strength, which has met and removed evil, it is there; peace and wrath, it is there also: the world under Satan’s power rising up, to get finally rid of a God of love; and God, by this very act, delivering the world and making peace by the blood of His own Son. As it is said, “That through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; and deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage” (Heb. 2:14, 1514Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; 15And deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage. (Hebrews 2:14‑15)). As I have said, good and evil in all their extremes and forms meet there for the triumph of love in once suffering the evil, that good may have its full force.
Do you ask, reader, why then are we in such a world still? I will tell you. Scripture tells us, God in grace is still leading souls to profit by and enjoy this. It is a world of misery, and sorrow, and oppression. Did God interfere to change it, He must come in judgment and close the time of mercy; and that He does not do, while yet any have ears to hear. He allows, therefore, the evil which He will judge to go on meanwhile. And we, though we may thus have to suffer awhile in the world, ought in this sense to rejoice that it is yet allowed; because it is still a time of mercy extended to others. The end will be everlasting joy in a much better world. Christ is gone to prepare a, place for us, and He will come again and take us to Himself, that where He is, there we may be also. Thus Peter says, “The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness, but is longsuffering to us ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:99The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. (2 Peter 3:9)).
Finally, my reader, you may not have, in peace of soul, been able to contemplate all the glory of the cross. You have a blessed portion yet before you; but remember, it is presented to you just as you are, for your need, in all the grace of it towards a poor sinner. It meets you in your sins, if it infinitely glorifies God. A Jesus dying on the cross for the vilest meets the wants and the burdens of the vilest―comes home through grace to his heart. If his sins are a burden to him, he may see Christ bearing them, that he may be free and have peace. “God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:1616For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. (John 3:16)). “And by him, all that believe are justified from all things” (Acts 13:3939And by him all that believe are justified from all things, from which ye could not be justified by the law of Moses. (Acts 13:39)). Were his “sins as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow” (Isa. 1:1818Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. (Isaiah 1:18)). If you are heavy laden, come to Him who came in love to give you rest, and has died in love for you.
The Lord’s peace be with you, dear reader be with you, whoever you may be. May you be washed in that blood which cleanses from all sin and the Lord will preserve you for His heavenly kingdom. Your affectionate servant in Christ, J. N. D.