The world has crucified the Son of God!
Now God has to say to the world, What have you done with My Son? What has He done for you? Nothing but good.
Then why did you spit in His face and crucify Him? Man has done this, and when the light shines in, he confesses he has done it and that he cannot answer one charge in a thousand.
The world is in for judgment. We all know it.
How about the law? It tells a man what he ought to be: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart” (Matthew 22:3737Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. (Matthew 22:37)), and, “Thou shalt not covet” (Romans 7:77What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet. (Romans 7:7)). But I know I have not loved God, and I have lusted. Having offended in one point of law I am no longer guiltless, though I may not have committed all the sins of which man is capable.
People talk about mercy, which means they hope God will think as little about their sins as they do. A man has committed, say, ten sins; he hopes to go to heaven. If he has committed eleven, he thinks that is not too much; if a hundred, he hopes still—he has no thought of holiness. One sin shuts out from God, but the door is not shut to any who now own all frankly.
What is sin? Do you like doing your own will? This is what sin is.
The law claimed the debt. Christ paid it and that is grace. “God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them” (2 Corinthians 5:19).
I turn to the cross of Christ. What is He doing there? Judging the repentant thief? No, he is dying that our sins might be forever put away.
There is that blessed One whom I have been despising all my days, and I see He has died to be the Saviour. He says, “It is finished”—perfectly finished. Nothing can be added to it; the work was done.
He has gone back into glory, because He has finished the work. The Holy Spirit brings it home to my heart, and I say, “He has done it all for me!” He died for our sins and was raised again for our justification. His resurrection is proof that God has accepted the work and that we who believe have been “accepted in the beloved.”
So, instead of putting me away, God has put my sin away. He has met me in the day of grace, instead of my meeting Him in the day of judgment.