(Notes of a Gospel Address).
FOUR things come before us in connection with the cross—
God’s final test of man as a sinner.
God’s estimate of sin.
God’s judgment of sin.
God’s end revealed in blessing.
We see in the cross the full exhibition of man’s wickedness. The full character and root of sin is brought to light, and man proved to be a hater of God.
God was fully revealed and presented to man in the person of Christ. In grace He adapted Himself to the need of man as He found him amid the varied forms of evil under which he labored as the fruit of sin. On the other hand, everything which was agreeable to God in man, every human grace and perfection, was set forth in Jesus. Yet the One in whom all this was set forth was despised and rejected. When Pilate brought forth this blessed One and said, “Behold the Man,” the religious leaders said, “Crucify Him.” The most enlightened, the most religious of men rejected Him. They would have nothing of God, and could appreciate nothing that was according to God.
All this only proves how entirely man is alienated from God. If man has been proved capable of murdering the Son of God, what further need of testing? His state has been fully revealed; his sin has come to light in its worst form. But all this has been recorded for our profit. Man has been portrayed in his true character by the hand of God, so that we may look at the picture and see ourselves as God sees us; see ourselves as we really are, not one whit better than those in whom all this wickedness was brought to light.
Now the second point to consider is that in the cross we have God’s estimate of sin—His holy abhorrence of it, His righteous judgment of it. This has been clearly set forth in His own beloved Son made sin, forsaken of God and crying, “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” God’s face was hidden from the beloved One because He had become, on that cross, at that particular moment, identified with sin. Thus we see how obnoxious sin is to God, how absolutely intolerable it is to Him. We may think lightly of it; He cannot. He abhors it. How important it is that we should come in some measure to have God’s estimate of it and of ourselves as sinful men! If repentance is to be true and deep, and it should be, we must judge ourselves in the light of the cross. There will then be no assumption of what we are not, no pretension to human goodness, not even a thought of self-improvement for ultimate self-satisfaction. The only thing we can do is to loathe ourselves, and repent in dust and ashes. Instead of seeking to justify ourselves, we shall condemn ourselves, and in so doing we shall come over to God’s side. We shall justify Him by accepting His judgment of ourselves.
Now whence comes the relief? What is the remedy? This is the third point for our consideration. We see how, for every repentant sinner, God has condemned sin in Christ dying for us on the cross, so that He can now justify and save the one who has sinned. “God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, has condemned sin in the flesh” (Rom. 8:33For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: (Romans 8:3)). “He who knew no sin was made sin for us” (2 Cor. 5:2121For 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 5:21)). God has condemned my sin in the sinless One. The sinful man in myself has been condemned in the sinless Man, on the cross. In so doing God has established and manifested His righteousness. It is of all importance to know that all the rights of God have been fully maintained and satisfied in the death of Christ, and that God has been glorified in the presence of sin. Moreover, all this has been made a clearly manifest in the fact that Christ has been raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, and is gone to the right hand of God.
Lastly, what is the result of all this? It is this, that the soul coming to God by Jesus, through faith, is accepted of God, and made meet for glory. My sin having been so completely condemned in Jesus dying for me, God no longer identifies me with my sin. Before Him I stand apart from it, and He now identifies me with Christ. I am, in Christ, righteous before God. As a man in Adam, in sin, I have died in the One who died for me, so that if I live before God I live in a wholly new condition, in Christ. “I am crucified with Christ. No longer live I, but Christ liveth in me.”
Thus, a man like the dying thief could go straight into paradise. But he did not go there as a thief. In the One dying by his side God had condemned all that the thief was, as well as met all he had done, so that in that character he had come to an end and ceased to be. God no longer identified him with his sin, and no more regarded him in the character of a thief; he lived to God in another condition, in the life of Christ, and so he was fit to be with Christ in paradise.
The One who has borne our sin has become our righteousness. The believer is in Christ, and there is no condemnation to those in Christ Jesus. Such are made meet for the inheritance of saints in light, and can therefore rejoice in hope of the glory of God.
F. H. B.