Digibron cookies

Voor optimale prestaties van de website gebruiken wij cookies. Overeenstemmig met de EU GDPR kunt u kiezen welke cookies u wilt toestaan.

Noodzakelijke en wettelijk toegestane cookies

Noodzakelijke en wettelijk toegestane cookies zijn verplicht om de basisfunctionaliteit van Digibron te kunnen gebruiken.

Optionele cookies

Onderstaande cookies zijn optioneel, maar verbeteren uw ervaring van Digibron.

Bekijk het origineel

THE CHRISTIAN REMEMBRANCER

Bekijk het origineel

+ Meer informatie

THE CHRISTIAN REMEMBRANCER

13 minuten leestijd Arcering uitzetten

CHAPTER X

On the Life of Christ

Though my Redeemer was to be, and was, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; though he was to have, and had, all our iniquities in his own body on the cross; though he was to bear the curse, and was cursed, for the transgression of his people, and, for a token of it, was hanged upon a tree; yet, in his own person, he was pure, harmless, and undefiled, and so was called typically the holy Lamb of God, without blemish, or any possible defect. He was perfectly without sin, from the manger to the cross. When Satan tried him in the desert, he found nothing in him of weakness of mind or defilement of body; and therefore his temptations had nothing to lay hold of, but fell to the ground. His enemies among men, stirred up by the malice of the adversary, could not, when he challenged them, convince him of sin; nor was any thing like guile to be found in his mouth. All his words were wisdom itself, and all his actions were purity and love.

There are three principal reasons why such a Redeemer became us; and these are to be found only in Christ.

A sacrifice, in the first place, was necessary for our iniquities; for, “without shedding of blood, there is no remission of sins.” The justice of God required atonement: because it is inconsistent with the holiness of his nature to spare the guilty. No truth, in all his word, is more plain than this. But nothing could be substituted in the room of sinners, which was naturally sinful in itself; for this would only increase the wrath of the Most High. And, therefore, as his love was pleased to provide and accept a substitute; such a one appeared, as was without spot, or defect of any kind in himself, and had nothing to answer for of his own. This is the signification of all the pure sacrifices under the law, which speak aloud, that they are entirely vicarious, or one offered up in the stead of another.

In the next place, the redeemed, as sinners, wanted righteousness, without which they cannot appear with acceptance before God. And, as a perfect righteousness can only be pleasing to him, and all men are incapable of producing such a one, and as therefore it can only be obtained by accounting the righteousness of a substitute for their own; Jesus Christ was Jehovah in our nature, in order to be JEHOVAH OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS. God is well pleased for his righteousness, which is infinite, and everlasting, capable of justifying from all things, and through all times, even unto eternity. Christ, not for himself, but for his people, fulfilled all righteousness, and upon their account magnified the law of their God. It was for this end that he lived so many years upon earth, and went through all the stages of human life to manhood; by which his people of all ages might have, through faith, a right of acceptance in him.

And, thirdly, the merit of the sacrifice for sin, and the substitution of righteousness for sinners, required some person to intervene, or to stand between God and sinners, and to offer these exchanges in their behalf. This office is the office of a priest, who is a mediator between God and man, and who must therefore be holy in himself. Christ was this perfect person; and so was “such an high priest as became us; holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and made higher than the heavens;” having an unchangeable priesthood, to which he is consecrated for evermore.

These are the reasons of all his labors in love and righteousness: and he was able to merit and go through them, being Jehovah in man; as well as to suffer what he took upon him, being man in Jehovah.

O what a task of unparalleled grace and humility is here! Who could have done such unimpeachable works, but he who is perfect in himself? Who could have done them to render others perfect for ever before God, but one so much above all created perfection ,as to have for others an unbounded perfection to spare?

Lord, help me to meditate upon thee, and upon all that thou hast done for my soul! O put on this garment of salvation, this robe of righteousness, which thy blessed hands have perfectly wrought, that it may be my wedding garment in the day of my espousals, when I shall leave the world, and appear before the majesty on high! This is the righteousness of saints, pure, white, and shining, in which they walk with thee in glory, and in which I also hope to walk, unworthy creature as I am, both with thee and with them. O then shall I appear without spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing, all-acceptable to God, all-illustrious in thee! Lord! what hast thou wrought indeed? Thou hast wrought for me to entitle me to heaven; and thou hast wrought in me to fit me for heaven; a work, as it seems to me, no less difficult than the other; so stubborn and vile am I, and so opposite to thy pure nature is mine. I marvel, and with tears of joy I marvel, at all the mysterious wonders of thy redemption, at thy plain and clear, yet unsearchable love, at thine awful justice magnified even by grace itself, at the kindness thou hast shown, and the goodness thou hast promised, at the never-ending line of wisdom in thy holy word, and at the unbounded scene of glory yet before me. I am overwhelmed, I am astonished, at the weight and grandeur of thy divine benevolence. Accept the faculties of my body and soul, all I am and all I have; and let them be found to thy praise, and honor, and glory, both now and at the day of thine appearing! Amen.

CHAPTER XI

On the Death of Christ

“Behold, and see, if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me, wherewith the Lord hath afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger.”

No, my Jesus, never was sorrow like thine. Thou barest the griefs of millions; griefs which would have sunk those millions into insufferable woe. Omnipotence itself groaned under the tremendous load, which forced from thy pure and perfect body, not common sweat, (the curse inflicted with human labor,) but a dreadful sweat, bursting forth in great drops of agonizing blood. O what a doleful cry didst thou utter, and who but thyself can conceive those (to us unknown) pangs and sufferings, which forced from thy sacred lips, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”

The meditation of thy sufferings and death is painful in the sympathy of nature: yet I cannot wish that thou hadst not endured them, nor didst thou fully wish it for thyself. Thou wast contented to be betrayed into the hands of sinful men for this very purpose. It was by the determined counsel and foreknowledge of God, that all the parts of this solemn event were transacted. And it is for the everlasting interest of me and of thousands ,that all the scriptures concerning thee were thus awfully fulfilled.

Lord, what is sin, that thou thyself couldst not be spared; when, from the souls of thy people, it was taken off and laid upon thee? Can any thing more solemnly describe the hatred of the divine nature to sin, and the severity of the divine justice upon account of it, than the pangs, the horrors, the cries of thee, my Jesus, thou suffering Son of God ? And if thou wert sacrificed for sin, who in thyself knewest no sin, what shall be come of those who reject thy saving sacrifice, and yet all the while have nothing but sin in themselves ?

Who could support such excruciating tortures, unassisted and uncomforted as thou wert, even upon a just account? It was not in the power of a creature to sustain thine inward griefs, thine outward torments, and the entire dereliction or forsaking of God, of men, and of nature, all together and at once, as thou didst sustain them, upon any account or motive in the world. But thou enduredst the whole with dignified complacency and satisfaction, even for thine enemies, to convert them into friends, and to make rebels and apostates heirs of God, and joint-heirs with thyself of an eternal weight of glory. May not I turn thine own words and say, ‘Behold, and see, was there ever love like thy love, which thou showedst for thy people, when the Lord afflicted thee in the day of his fierce anger?’

Lord, how shall I speak, and what shall I say to these things? Shall my incredulous heart be still backward to believe? If Jesus died for my sins, can I die for them too? If he freely bare the curse for my sake, will the justice of my God still require the curse at my hands ? If my iniquities were taken on himself by my Saviour, and he made a full and perfect atonement for them, can I dare to affront the divine majesty by supposing, that he is yet so unrighteous as to charge them all again upon me? O forgive my hard and impenitent heart that I should ever imagine such blasphemy against thy faithfulness and love; that I should even think that thou canst be so unjust and untrue, even in contradiction to thine own word, as to lay that still upon myself, which for thy sake was entirely laid upon my dearest and most blessed Redeemer! Lord, I melt into tears of shame at myself, and into tears of comfort, upon the remembrance of all this thy kindness to my soul. Thy blood, O my Jesus, cleanseth from all sin; and if from all, what sin can possibly remain to be now imputed to me? O help, thou Mighty God, thou Prince of peace, that I may no more be faithless, but believing!

CHAPTER XII

On the Resurrection of Christ

Never fact was more strongly and undeniably established than this. Divine providence ordained that it should be so; because upon this great truth depend all the assurance and efficacy of our redemption. “If Christ be not raised,” says the apostle, “your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins.”

But is there no proof of Christ’s resurrection, but the historical evidence? Yes, blessed Lord, as thou givest thy people to know of the doctrine of salvation, that it is thine, by the demonstration of the Spirit; so thou affordest to them a most convincing testimony, that thou art indeed risen from the dead, by their super-resurrection from the death of trespasses and sins. If thou hadst not been raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, it would have been impossible for any of them to have either received or walked in the newness of life. Their being spiritually quickened with thee, is a proof in itself of thy glorious resurrection, and a confirmation to their souls, that they are thine own unalienable inheritance, and that therefore they shall live with thee for ever.

Thou hast truly and graciously said, “I am the resurrection and the life; he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live; and whosoever liveth and believeth in me, shall never die.” Lord, I was long, and too long, dead to God and dead to thee, shut up under the ban of the law, through sin, yet, like a dead carcass to all outward impressions, utterly insensible to my alienation and separation from thy life and peace. I was dead also to my own true interest and everlasting concerns, and alive only to sin, and to the service of the lord of sin, without perceiving his bitter tyranny, and horrible designs: “So foolish was I and ignorant, yea, even as a beast before thee.” The beasts indeed follow the end of their being, but I did not think upon mine. In tender mercy didst thou open mine eyes, that I might know myself and my misery, and that I might behold thee as the only refuge and hope of my soul. Thou gavest me the powers of a new and spiritual life: and then I ran towards thee with an affection I had never felt before, and desired to know more and more of thee and the power of thy resurrection, so that I might no longer live in or for myself, but in thy faith and for thy glory. All this was thy work, and thine alone. I might as easily have created a world, as thus have new-created myself, in opposition to the millions of hinderances from within and without. No: it was thou, my dearest Redeemer; it was thou that restored my soul, and led me in the paths of righteousness for thy name’s sake; and therefore I trust, (and though I am sometimes afraid, yet still do I trust, and would trust again,) that “surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and that I shall dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.”

O what an evidence of thy resurrection hast thou thus brought home to my heart! Confirmed as it is, by the holy written word, it is demonstration itself, and is not to be argued away by all the corrupt reasonings of men. It is a demonstration both of word and of deed, of spirit and of life, of understanding and experience, of thy faithfulness and truth, and of all my blessed and joyful interest therein. “Sing, O ye heavens, for the Lord hath done it: shout, ye lower parts of the earth: break forth into singing, ye mountains, O forest, and every tree therein: for Jehovah hath redeemed Jacob, and glorified himself in Israel.”

Thomas doubted, that I might believe more strongly. He was suffered to fail in his faith, that my faith, and that of all thy children after him, might be improved and confirmed. But the mere evidence of sense can draw no blessing. His bodily view of thy resurrection was indeed followed by faith; but, from hence thou tookest occasion, most happily for thy people, to say, “Blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.” Through thy mercy I have believed, and according to thy word have tasted thy blessing. Joy and peace in believing, quietness and assurance of mind, peace and resignation of soul, some holiness, and strong desires after more, contempt of this world and foretastes of a better, preparation for death and views of a transporting eternity, are among the many proofs that thou art risen and livest, that thou art gracious and true. O that these proofs may increase in number and measure, that my faith may be more and more lively, and that I may “abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost.”

Deze tekst is geautomatiseerd gemaakt en kan nog fouten bevatten. Digibron werkt voortdurend aan correctie. Klik voor het origineel door naar de pdf. Voor opmerkingen, vragen, informatie: contact.

Op Digibron -en alle daarin opgenomen content- is het databankrecht van toepassing. Gebruiksvoorwaarden. Data protection law applies to Digibron and the content of this database. Terms of use.

Bekijk de hele uitgave van zaterdag 1 augustus 1942

The Banner of Truth | 16 Pagina's

THE CHRISTIAN REMEMBRANCER

Bekijk de hele uitgave van zaterdag 1 augustus 1942

The Banner of Truth | 16 Pagina's