This is the way God saves sinners like you and me that have broken His Law and rejected His Precious Son all of our life. God saves sinners by letting Christ pay the penalty due to the rebel's sins. I have sinned, I am so guilty and condemned already. *John 3:18* I was standing in God's Courtroom with no defense, but then Mercy came to my rescue and pleaded my case. Christ Jesus stepped in, He put me aside, and stood in my place. When the Judge of all the earth demanded my plea, Christ said for me, "Guilty!" And He took my guilt to be His guilt, and right when the death sentence was going to be carried out on me, Christ said, "Father, punish Me instead of him. This sinner has pled guilty and asked Me for Mercy. I have put my Righteousness on this guilty one, and I have taken His sins upon Me. Father, punish Me, and consider this transgressor to have been Me. Let Him go free for My sake, and let Me suffer His misery and penalty, pour out all Your wrath on Me. Let me endure His curse, let him receive My blessing forever."
Sooner or later, you will stand before your Maker, and give account to Him; for God shall bring every work into Judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil. The natural man with a carnal mind is the enemy of God and the child of the devil. The love of sin, wicked pride and self-righteousness will land you in the lake of fire. Salvation is the putting of an Innocent Person in the rebel's place. The rebel must die, for God says he must. But Christ says, "I will be the Substitute for the rebel. The rebel shall take My place, and I will take His." In infinite mercy God consents to Jesus' plea, and the Holy Father says, "Very well, Son, you must stand in the sinner's place, You must suffer what this criminal ought to have suffered, You must be accounted guilty, just as He is accounted guilty, I will look upon this sinner as if he were Christ, I will accept Him as if He were my Son. I will give Him a crown and a home in Heaven forever." This is the way God saves guilty sinners - Free, instantaneous, irreversible Full and free Salvation is through simple faith in the Precious Blood of the Crucified Creator. That's all there is to it.
The way of salvation is by Jesus Christ Crucified. *I Corinthians 1:18,23,28* The whole plan of redemption is by the blood and righteousness of the Crucified Creator. The whole glorious finished work of Christ is for us sinners. The love of God in giving His Son for His enemies. *Romans 5:10* The love of Christ in giving Himself for me. *Ephesians 5:2* The incarnation of the Son of God, His Substitution, one for all, His atoning sufferings and bloody death. The whole work of Christ is contained in one small word - the CROSS. "It is finished!" was Jesus' cry when He died. The work of His obedience, sufferings, redemption - His whole finished work is called in the Scriptures - "the Cross of Christ". The two main things that keeps any sinner from coming to Christ is a love for his sins *John 3:19*, or his self-righteousness *Romans 10:3*, and sometimes both.
Jesus was wounded for my transgressions; He bore my sins in His body on the tree. For my guilt, He gave me Pardon. As my Atonement, He bled and died, that the Law and divine justice could be satisfied, all my sins were laid on Him. Gone are my transgressions forever, all because Jesus was wounded for me.
Every man by nature seeks his own salvation by trying to make himself better in the sight of God. He tries to patch us his own life, he tries to clean up his act, his speech, his thoughts, all to make himself better in the sight of God. And sometimes he even goes further, he tries to cover up his past sins by religious activity, he becomes a religious moralist, he may even become deeply occupied in a religion, all to try and make himself appear good in the eye of God, so that he lay God under debt to pardon and love him. It is the hardest thing in the world for a man to forsake his own righteousness and let go of his sinful pleasures.
You must give up the old man's way of salvation. You can never please God by your own deeds, for you are a sinner. Stop looking inwardly for righteousness, look out of yourself to Christ alone and receive His Righteousness. Stop looking to your convictions, at your own attainments, stop struggling and start trusting. Look to the work of Jesus Christ, and rely on the saving work of the Holy Spirit. The bed of your own efforts is shorter than you can stretch yourself upon, and the covering of your own righteousness is narrower than you can wrap yourself in. Give up your own doings forever. Your heart is desperately wicked and deceitful above all things. Your own righteousness is vile and polluted in God's sight. Count your works as all loss, they are only filthy rags and dung. Every man in his best state is altogether vanity. God is a God of inflexible justice, truth, and holiness, but He delights in mercy, and is ready to forgive for Jesus' sake. Trust the "righteousness of God;" the Righteousness which is by faith in Jesus' Precious Blood. The Righteousness of Christ, without your works, is most needful.
The natural man is at war with his Creator. Divine justice pursues his every step. The sinner attempts to bully his own conscience and refuses to heed its warnings. The soul that sinneth, it shall die. There is no getting away from that doom, a life must be taken for the sin you've committed, the wages of sin is death. You are a rebel against God's divine authority. God's justice must award you eternal destruction for you have sinned against Him all your life. Remember that the Law of God is spiritual and reveals your sinfulness by dealing with your thoughts, desires, imaginations, with your inward nature itself. We all must cry - Guilty in every way, Guilty every day. You may have been outwardly moral in man's eyes and commendable at times, but the heart, the thoughts, the intents are what the LORD looks at. You have come way short of the demands of God's righteous Law. You can't come to God on your own terms. You cannot please God, your own efforts cannot help save you. Christ needs absolutely nothing from you to supplement His Precious Blood.
The Lord Jesus Christ has fully paid the penalty due to sin. He completely satisfied the claims of divine justice by His Blood Atonement. All that the Law would possibly demand was satisfied by Jesus' suffering. Christ Jesus is my Substitute and Sacrifice. He came into the world and offered Himself to vindicate the injured Law of God on my behalf. My standing is only in Christ. The blood Sacrifice of God's Son satisfied all claims of divine justice. All the requirements and demands of Justice have been met. The Judge of all the earth executed His justice upon the Lamb of God on Calvary's Cross. This is the only hope for lost men - that the justice of God has been vindicated by the bloody death of the Lord Jesus Christ. Believe into Christ.
By faith in Jesus Himself, men are delivered from the curse of the Law, because Jesus was made a Curse for them. God Himself condescended to earth in the person of Jesus of Nazareth to suffer in the place of His enemies. Worthy is the Lamb that was slain. Now understand the claims and demands of divine justice, and the heinousness of disobedience. His atoning Sacrifice provided infinite Satisfaction on my behalf. Tell of the Cross, the wounds, the stripes, the blood, a Crucified Savior, the Substitute was condemned at the bar of justice for me. Behold Jesus for yourself by Faith in His Precious Blood. God laid my sins on Jesus and poured out His full vengeance on the Lamb of God's head. Christ endured the wrath of God and paid my Ransom with His life and blood. If you reject Christ, you do it at your peril. Jesus Christ my Substitute has bore my guilt, curse and punishment of my sin.
Salvation from sin is free to me, but very costly to God. God still saves unworthy sinners: only bad people go to Heaven. Most men are kept from Christ by their own supposed goodness. Bible salvation is all of Grace, all by Christ, all of Faith, all of God. Jesus was made a Curse for us. The penal consequences of my sins were visited upon the great Substitute and He vindicated the Law of God for me. Regeneration - this is the act of God where He implants His divine nature into the soul of a lost man when he repents and trusts to Christ's Righteousness alone. Only the Holy Ghost can teach you that you're lost and make you conscious of your sin, guilt, inability and danger. God has counted my sins to Christ's account, and He has counted Christ's Righteousness to my account - this is the divine miracle called Imputation. Look away to what Christ has accomplished for His enemies - trust in the work of His atoning bloody death. This is the miracle of Salvation - Christ's Righteousness is laid on my soul and my sins are laid to Jesus - this is the great exchange that occurs when a man believes on Jesus. *I Peter 2:24* *Isaiah 53:12* *John 1:27*
The Supreme Judge of the universe Himself bore the guilt and curse instead of the culprit, and thus vindicated the injured law of God. Jesus' sinless life and bloody death was the perfection of obedience and the satisfaction of God's righteous law. Sin must be punished, so Jesus came to honor the broken Law, and then He died to atone for lawbreakers. Jesus was absolutely innocent, and He voluntarily submitted Himself as the Substitute for sinful men, to suffer so that God could righteously and justly forgive them. God's mercies should mould our thoughts and make us grateful. Jesus met all the holy demands of the Law, and with His blood made amends for man's offenses. If you will not turn, you must burn. Your hubris will land you in Hell. Unworthy, insignificant, useless sinners come to Jesus for mercy and charity. The guilty need and seek Mercy, and only they. Christ Jesus came into awful contact with the infinite justice of God for my sake. The grace of God gave Jesus Christ to die in my place and bear for me that which was due to the justice of God on account of my sins. Human endeavors and merits will not suffice before the White Throne Judgment.
Never trust your good temper, charities, patriotism, community service, courage, honesty to satisfy the claims of God's divine justice. The only thing that can save a guilty man from divine justice is Christ's Blood Atonement. I owe much to God's love, but I owe nothing to His justice. The finished work of Jesus Christ is my only passport to the skies, the better country, New Jerusalem. Go to the Cross, and see divine justice vindicated in the suffering and bloody death of the Lord Jesus Christ, and rest in the mercy of God which comes freely to guilty men. God is everywhere, and His divine justice finds out His enemies. The justice and wrath of God is only appeased by the bloody death of Jesus Christ. The Eternal hand of divine justice has signed your death warrant, you are condemned already. *John 3:18* If God gave up Jesus to His divine justice, what do think He will do with you, if reject the Lord Jesus Christ? The Lord Jesus Christ by Himself has so vindicated divine justice that no punishment is required from me forever. Jesus has suffered for me, and now I go free. Let Jesus be magnified.
