Human nature has a great ignorance of its own sinfulness, the Righteousness of God, the strictness of Divine Justice, and the spirituality and extent of the Law of God, which reaches to the thoughts, imaginations, intents, impulses, and desires of the heart and mind. The first motions of sin, the plague of the heart, the sin of lust, the exceeding sinfulness of sin is brought to light by the Spirit of God via the Law of God. At Calvary, the law was fulfilled, divine justice was satisfied, sins were atoned for, pardon was procured, and salvation was fully accomplished.
All men by nature are on the run as fugitives from divine justice. Your wisest course is to turn and go and turn yourself over to divine justice. Worldly men are trying to escape detection. Be wise - go and declare you are Guilty at the Cross. Lost men tremble every time someone brings up death, Eternity, judgment, and reality. The criminal trembles when anyone gives him a second look. The sight of a police car or a policeman is terrifying to a fugitive from the law. He seeks to hide himself from the officers of justice. Likewise, a sinner who is attempting to evade divine justice is a miserable nervous wretch. Sin is always growing in our hearts. Sin is undesirable, unattractive, and troublesome, always sprouting up and growing where it is not wanted.
Give yourself up to Almighty Justice today. Come and surrender yourself. Turn yourself in at the Cross. You are really not hidden, for God sees you where you are all the time, there is no hiding from God. Men do not like to think of their sins and guilt. Submit yourself to Christ now, lie down at His feet and plead for Mercy. All of the earth is one big prison house when God is seeking you, for God can see you anywhere, His eye can spy you out in the darkest place, and find you in your secret hiding place. The eyes of divine justice always see you. You can never perform good enough to make yourself acceptable to God, only Jesus did that. God reads your thought life, hears your words, and sees your deeds continuously. You who are hiding in the darkness, come and deliver yourself up to Jesus. Show yourself, surrender now to God.
God took upon Himself the nature of man and was born into this world as Jesus of Nazareth. He lived a life of suffering and obedience, and died an shameful and painful death, and now He has risen from the death, and He is sitting at the right hand of God, and will come again to judge the quick and the dead. This God, this man, this Mediator between God and man is to be trusted. The sentence of divine justice was exacted upon Jesus. God has not dealt with us after our sins, nor rewarded us according to our iniquities. But God's justice and vengeance dealt with and rewarded Jesus for all my sins.
The Holy Ghost must first make you aware that there is a moral divine Law from your Maker, and that moral Law has been broken by you, and that you can't put yourself right in relation to that moral Law. Then and only then does the Gospel begin to speak to your heart. Only the Cross can resolve your deadly predicament called Sin. The chief question is this - How can I get rid of my sins? You think wrongly, speak vilely, and act badly. You tell lies, cheat, and lust; you're spiteful, you gossip and are rude, you hurt people, you're stuck on yourself. Religious self-therapy damns every soul that tries it. When you are sick, then you will listen to the Doctor. When you realize you are sinful, only then will you listen to the Savior. The Law of God demands complete obedience. You have to get 100 on the test, 99 is no good. The Law of God also demands the full penalty for breaking the Law. The only way out of your deadly predicament is the Cross. What we know not, the Gospel teaches; what we have not, Grace gives us; and what we are not, Mercy makes us.
The Gospel is not good advice about what a man should do to make himself acceptable to God, but rather it is the Good News of what God in the person of Jesus of Nazareth has done on behalf of sinners that made it possible to be acceptable to God. All men are rebels and have done everything to deserve Judgment, and by nature they are unacceptable to God, but God in eternal love and rich mercy sent His Son as a Substitute for sinners to rescue them from guilt and alienation from God. The Precious Blood of Christ provides each penitent trusting sinner the free, unearned forgiveness of sins.
God laid my sins upon Christ, and He has vindicated the Law by bearing its full penalty. It is only our Judge who can condemn us, and since He is the very person who has paid our debt for us, and put our sins away, we are free from His judgment the moment we trust to Him. Jesus paid the deadly penalty which our sin debt rendered necessary. Mercy must be a gift, grace must be free. Everyone that believes on Christ is justified from all things, and looked upon by God as being perfectly Righteous, as Christ is Righteous. The Righteousness of Christ is imputed to the believer, and he is accepted in the beloved. We are innocent, pardoned, and praiseworthy to God for Jesus' sake. This is Justification.
Jesus suffered the consequences of my sins that I might never suffer those consequences. Jesus made an Atonement to the stern justice of God. He vindicated and honored the divine Law of God. The divine justice of God must smite the sinner, or One who is able and willing to suffer int he sinner's place. It is imperative, that sin cannot go unpunished. Justice approaches, but Christ comes forth and steps in, and interposes between me and the death sentence of the Law. I hide away under Christ, and all the blows are dealt upon Him. I put myself behind the Savior. I say to God, "Deal not with me, deal with my dying Savior." Jesus took our nature and our sins, and our punishment.
Sin is the filthy stuff that has made God Himself to be sickened at the thought of man. Sin is the moral pollution of our lives. God piled up all of our sins into one foul heap and laid them all upon Christ. The great Sin-Bearer took our sins upon Himself. He suffers for those sins, He bore the sentence of divine justice on account of our sins, then He casts them away forever. Christ Jesus died for us when divine justice required death. We owe a very heavy debt, it has to be paid by someone, but a Friend has undertaken to pay it for me. I am a poor sinner, over my head in debt to God's justice, but Jesus paid my bill in full. My great Substitute came right on time and paid and discharge my sin debt for me. The greatest help that you ever did want was for someone to stand and be a daysman for you, and to pay your debts to infinite justice, and the Lord Jesus Christ did just that for every sinner. Christ died for the ungodly.
Jesus didn't come to save the good, the respectable, the religious, but to save vile, vulgar sinners. What was it that was finished on the Cross? Jesus' atoning blood interposed between guilty souls and divine justice. He stood in our place, to obey and then suffer on our behalf. He began this work early in His life. He lived in perfect holy obedience for thirty-three years. Men intentionally sin, they concoct some evil scheme, arranging all the details, laying the traps, setting snares, spinning webs, to effect an evil purpose. God is able to pardon all of your sins in a moment, so that there's nothing in God's book against you. Do you know this can be done? It is only through the great atoning Sacrifice of Jesus Christ who on Calvary bore the wrath of God in my place, so that God might be able with justice to freely forgive all my sins by simply trusting in Christ's Blood Atonement. This is the miracle of Mercy.
Come and seek God, confessing your sins and helplessness, accepting the great Sacrifice of Jesus. This is the best news that ever a tongue had to tell. There is no passing by human sin without an Atonement. But how is it that the bloody death of the Lord Jesus Christ is able to pardon sin? Well, being God in the flesh, Jesus took upon Himself our nature became God and man in one Person. He bore our sins in His own body on the tree, and vindicated divine justice by laying down His life for us. God the Father took vengeance on Jesus, because He became Sin for us, and suffered all that was due to our sins.
Jesus paid all that infinite justice could demand. The claims of divine justice must be met, the Judge of all the earth must do right, and He cannot allow sin to go unpunished. This truth causes great trouble to a man when he thinks that he is going where God must visit his sins upon him. God has given us in Christ that which satisfies the demands of divine justice. What Christ has done for us is this - God can now be just, and yet the Justifier of him that believe on Jesus' Precious Blood. God executed the death penalty upon the sinless Substitute, and now whosoever believes on Jesus shall not perish, but have everlasting life. Jesus vindicated the Law, and honored God's holiness.
A man who is conscious of his sins, fears the justice of God. Christ Jesus, by doing right, and by the atoning sacrifice of Himself, has appeased the wrath of God, and satisfied divine justice, so that there is no condemnation to them that trust in His Precious Blood. Always remember this - Jesus' blood and righteousness answers all the demands of divine justice. Christ Jesus Himself is the Propitiation to God for all human sin and has made satisfaction to God's vengeance on sin. Only Christ's blood and righteousness can hide your sins from the eye of divine justice. All the punishment due to my sins was inflicted on Jesus.
Full satisfaction for all sins was demanded. The whole payment of my debts to the uttermost was insisted on, and all done are to to the utmost strictness of divine justice. Jesus defends me from divine justice, and secures me from the wrath to come, and renders me acceptable in God's sight. Jesus' great love in giving Himself as an atoning Sacrifice to divine justice is our only Hope. Jesus had the sins of others upon Him, and the strictness of divine justice didn't spare Him. Full satisfaction to divine justice, justification by imputed Righteousness, reconciliation and pardon by His atoning Blood, regeneration and sanctification by the Holy Spirit.
God gave up Jesus as a Sacrifice to divine justice for my sins. Jesus' blood, sufferings, and death have made a full payment and amends to divine vengeance. Reconciliation is made by the blood Jesus shed on the Cross, made in a way of satisfaction to the Law and Justice of God, by the Lamb of God bearing the penalty due to my sins, and suffering the strokes of divine justice on the Cross. Jesus was both the Priest and Sacrifice, He offered up Himself as the propitiatory Sacrifice for my sins, and made reconciliation for them. God's unswerving justice must be recompensed. Christ's person, blood, and righteousness is our Shield and protects us from the wrath of God, divine justice, an eternal death. Jesus gave Himself for me, His whole self, soul and body, into the hands of divine justice and death as an offering and sacrifice for human sin which He did freely and voluntarily.
