A dead and risen Christ is the groundwork of salvation. "Who was delivered for our offenses, and was raised again for our justification" (Rom. 4:25²⁵Who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification. (Romans 4:25)). To see Jesus by the eye of faith nailed to the cross and sealed on the throne must give solid peace to the conscience and perfect liberty to the heart. We can look into the tomb and see it empty; we can look up to the throne and see it occupied and go on our way rejoicing. The Lord Jesus settled everything on the cross on behalf of His people, and the proof of this settlement is that He is now at the right hand of God. A risen Christ is the eternal proof of an accomplished redemption, and if redemption is an accomplished fact, the believer's peace is a settled reality.

We did not make peace and never could make it; indeed, any effort on our part could only tend more fully to manifest us as peace-breakers. But Christ, having made peace by the blood of His cross, has taken His seat on high, triumphant over every enemy. By Him, God preached peace. The word of the gospel conveys this peace, and the soul that believes the gospel has peace—settled peace before God—for Christ is his peace. (See Acts 10:36³⁶The word which God sent unto the children of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ: (he is Lord of all:) (Acts 10:36); Rum. 5:1; Eph. 2:14¹⁴For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us; (Ephesians 2:14); Col. 1:20²⁰And, having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself; by him, I say, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven. (Colossians 1:20)) In this way God has not only satisfied His own claims, but in so doing He has found a divinely righteous way through which His boundless affections may flow down to the guiltiest of Adam's race.

C. H. Mackintosh

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