FROM NOTES OF AN ADDRESS BY J. N. D., DEC. 21, 1877. DUBLIN.
LET me turn back to the basis of all this. Christ bore my sins in His own body on the tree, and all is perfectly settled forever. If it isn’t, it never can be. It is done once for all—forever. There is no other application of the work as regards putting away sins in God’s sight. He does not impute sins, for the simple blessed reason that Christ has borne them, and is sitting at the right hand of God because it is done.
Many a true, honest soul sees only past sins settled; but what about sinning afterward? Go to Calvin, and he will send you back to baptism. Evangelicalism would go back to the blood. Heb. 10 gives us “the corners thereunto perfect,” Heb. 9:99Which was a figure for the time then present, in which were offered both gifts and sacrifices, that could not make him that did the service perfect, as pertaining to the conscience; (Hebrews 9:9), a perfect conscience before God. If I go into God’s presence, I haven’t the most distant thought that He imputes anything to me as guilt. That is what is wanting to so many souls. The worshippers once purged have no more conscience of sins—it doesn’t say sin. The old stock (i.e., the nature which produced the sins) is there still.
I go into the presence of God now and see Christ sitting there, because by one offering He has settled everything. (Chapter 10:11-14). Those whom He has set apart to God, He has perfected forever as to their consciences.
“Forever” means—never interrupted. If I come to God, Christ is always there, and my conscience always perfect.
One must go and humble oneself in the dust, if one has dishonored Christ; but that does not touch the relationship.
It is in the holiest I learn how bad sin is. I could not be before God in light until the veil was rent. By one offering He has perfected my conscience. When I go to God, I find Christ, who bore my sins, sitting down at His right hand because He has done it. It makes me see what sin is a great deal more than anything else. I have got a new nature, and am in the light, as God is in the light. It turns the question from righteousness to holiness. As long as I am connecting it with a question of access, it is righteousness I want. Suppose righteousness settled, then I abhor the sin, because it is seen as what it is in itself. Well, but you say without holiness no one can see the Lord. Quite true; but you are looking for righteousness.
The clearance in that way is absolute. But there is another thing that gives the soul its place before God. Not only that Christ died for my sins, but that I died with Him.
J. N. D.