He who hears my word and believes in him who sent me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life (John 5:24).
We were all ruined by Adam, our first representative. But Christ came as the second Adam, the second representative of the human race, and he redeemed us all. Legally it isso. Personally it becomes so as I believe it (1 John 4:17).
Only this can explain those mysterious sections of the Gospel narrative which tell us of the intensity of Christ’s mental anguish when he sweat great drops of blood and later cried, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”It was not fear of death that explains Christ’s agony. It was the awareness that he was suffering for the sins of the human race. He was forsaken of God, or so it seemed, that we might not be. On the Cross, Christ cried, “Why?” in order that we might never need to cry it.
The lightning bolts of judgement struck the innocent Son of God in order that the guilty might find safety at the seared site of Calvary. It is no travesty of justice. The unchangeable law of God was more honored by the death of the infinite Son than if the whole guilty human race had perished.
Furthermore, anyone who receives the blood-bought gift of righteousness cannot remain the same. The forgiveness given to rebel dissolves their spirit of rebellion.
No comments:
Post a Comment