IF God be righteous, and judges sin, can He exercise love to us in all its fullness, towards us who are sinners?
Now, here it is we see the value of the death and atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ. 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; He was made sin for us. He drank the bitter cup of death and judgment, which our sins had filled. He gave Himself for us; He was wounded for our transgressions; He was bruised for our iniquities.
Was not this love? Oh! reader, was it not? Yet there God's righteous judgment against sin was fully maintained, so that there was not the least allowance of sin. 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 be spared if they persevere in rejecting mercy through Him? Was it possible this cup could pass unless He drank it? It was not. For whom then shall it pass, 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 that 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," He says, "but I lay it down of Myself." (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 gave Me commandment, even so I do." (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 toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." (Rom. 5:8).
And see how the cross glorifies God in everything, if I look at it as a sacrifice for sin, as Christ giving Himself up, that God may be fully glorified. And how glorious Christ Himself is there, by His doing it! For, remember, it was a bitter cup, and 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 13:31). 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 that He should come, and His will was to come. "Lo, I come to do Thy will, O God." (Heb. 10:7, 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 that majesty should be vindicated against rebellious sin? The cross has done it; yet the sinner is spared.
Is God true, and has He 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 by it He has obtained for us life, beyond all the power of death and judgment.
Were our sins pressing upon us, so that we did not dare to 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 His love. 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. 2:8). 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 are gone for the believer. It is for him but the entrance into paradise. (See Luke 23:13; Heb. 2:14, 15). 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 faithful and just to forgive him his sins. (1 John 1:9).
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 condemned; he is justified, and has perfect peace with God. But how? By that which makes sin to his soul the most frightful thing that could possibly 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, dear reader; but is it not the truth, words, as Paul says, of truth and soberness? And this thing was not clone 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 declared 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, only made the matter worse for me, if I tried to put myself under it; for its holiness condemned my transgressions. But now, for him that believes, all is taken out of the way. Sin is gone; and death, the terrible thing which I awaited, is gone too; Christ has turned it into a gain; I shall be with Christ.
As to judgment, Christ has borne it. As to 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 priest to God and His Father. (Rev. 1:5, 6).
In rising from among the dead, 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 by participation in that life, in the power of which He has risen.
Yes, dear reader, the believer is saved; he has eternal life; lie 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 to Him until that dad.
There is a judgment (terrible it will be to those who have despised mercy and have rejected the Saviour); hut to those who, as poor sinners, have submitted to God's righteousness, believing in His love, Christ shall “appear the second time without sin unto salvation." (Heb. 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 unto Myself; that where I am, there ye may be also." (John 14:2, 3).
Weigh that passage I quoted just now from Hebrews. Christ has appeared "once in the end of the world... to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but: 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. 9:26-28).
The first time. He came, He bore the sins; the second time, He comes apart from that for the full salvation of those who 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. 27:46). 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 being thus given? Has He not glorified God in it? Has He not Himself been glorified in it and by it, bitter though 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 sins. 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! 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 it, 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 been shown in all its terrible character and effects? Where do I see man's hatred against goodness itself, and the Son of God bearing sins 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 Him 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. 13:4). "This is your hour, and the power of darkness," said the Lord. (Luke 22:53). "My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death.'' (Matt. 26:38). "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" (Matt. 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, 15). Good and evil in all their extent and forms met there for the triumph of love in once suffering the evil, that good might have its full force.
Do you ask, reader, Why then are we in such a world still?
Scripture gives the reason. It tells us that 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. Therefore He allows 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 long-suffering 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 all your sins, while it infinitely glorifies God.
A Saviour 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 3:16). "And by Him all that believe are justified from all things." (Acts 13:39). "Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow." (Isa. 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.