The Most Glorious Truth: Christ Jesus became the guilty Substitute for sinners. A substitute is one who takes our place and pays our debt. The debt God paid for human sin was tragic. God had to humble Himself and become a Jewish man and shed His own blood for undeserving sinners. The sinless God-man laid down His perfect life for His determined enemies. The only appropriate punishment for sin is eternal divine wrath (Romans 3:8); our damnation is just, we deserve to pay. Jesus paid a price you could never pay. Only Christ's Blood can make your peace with God (Colossians 1:20; Ephesians 2:13). Jesus' bloody suffering and death opened up the way for sinners to be reconciled back to an offended God. The Cross reconciles guilty men back to the holy Creator. Christ died for the ungodly; He loved me and gave Himself for me. Jesus paid my bill, and the same bill can never be paid twice. The anger of God is turned away from the guilty at Calvary. Jesus died an atoning death for me. Take your trust away from the things that you are doing. God will never accept anything you have done to atone for any of your sins. Look to the Blood of Jesus to cleanse your sin and be contented with Him alone.
God is just, and a just God must punish all human sin. The great question is, “How can God be Just, and yet the Justifier of the ungodly?” False heathen religions and counterfeit Christian religionists endeavor to answer the question, but they completely fail. Some think they have found the answer in their mass, confession, and baptism, but God’s justice is not vindicated by man’s religious efforts. Every man feels in his guilty conscience a craving after a reply to this question, “How can the Just God justly forgive me the sinner?” How can God save and have mercy on me, and yet maintain His justice?” Here's the answer to human guilt:
The Person of the Substitute: Jesus was truly man, and yet He was ‘truly’ God (I Timothy 3:16). Christ Jesus ‘suffered’ in the place of sinners. Christ partook of human flesh, human weakness, and was tempted as are; yet without sin. He was the perfect man: the God-man. He was the only man in whom there never dwelt sin. There was no sin whatsoever in His nature. No taint of unrighteousness ever ran in Jesus' veins. He was virgin born, and His human nature was ‘without spot or blemish’.
Christ never fell, He never partook of Adam’s sin. On the part of sinners, Jesus took upon Himself all the sins of the world, and bore them away. He was the Perfect Lamb of God that took away the sin of the world. The life of the man Christ Jesus was in every respect blameless and sinless. His heart never had any unholy anger. His lips never uttered a word of deceit. His pure mind never knew an imagination or thought of sin. Not only did Christ not sin, but He could not sin. He knew no sin, that is, He had no acquaintance with sin. He was a total stranger to sin altogether. He had no dealings with sin personally. He was ever pure, perfect, undefiled, spotless, holy, acceptable, and well pleasing unto God.
You may trust Jesus, the perfect God-man (I Timothy 3:16), with the utmost confidence. Christ was truly man, yet He was also very God. He possessed all the attributes of the eternal Jehovah. He that hung upon Calvary's Cross, was the same God who hung the stars and created the entire universe (John 1:3). God Himself in the person of Jesus of Nazareth did bear our sins in His own body on the tree of Calvary. By Him were all things made and without Him was not anything made that was made. None but the shoulders of the Incarnate God could bear the burden of the whole world’s sin. Christ Jesus was the Divine Sacrifice for human sin.
Struggling sinner, Come with me now and stand beneath the Cross of Calvary, and with the eye of Faith behold the Lord Jesus Christ hanging there, see His bleeding body, those wounds of His are streaming with God’s own blood, His sprear-rent side was opened for you. Though your sins so crimson and black, the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ is more crimson, and His blood can wash your sin-stained soul whiter than snow. Only His bloody death can take away the blackness and bitterness of your sins. He is able to save to the uttermost that come unto God by Him.
Sinner, look now at Jesus Christ - He is your only hope! There is power in His atoning blood to wash away ALL your sins. No sins can be too black or too many for His precious blood to cleanse. The Blood of Christ is sufficient and will do the job, period.
The Substitute's Sufferings: Christ also hath once suffered for sins. Jesus sweated in Gethsemane until His soul because so full of agony that the blood ran from the pores of His skin. His head, hair, garments were all bloody there. He was clothed in a red robe of His own blood. He wrestled and His soul was burdened with our guilt, and “sorrowful even unto death.”
Jesus rose from his place of prayer there in Gethsemane and went forth to meet His doom in Jerusalem. He was betrayed by Judas Iscariot, one of the twelve disciples. They hurried the Savior away to Annas, to Caiaphas, to Pilate, to Herod, then back again to Pilate, without any breathing time, without any relief. They accused Him of sedition. They accused Him of blasphemy. They could find no true witnesses against Him. He was accused and slandered and spit upon. They condemned the Innocent, they mock Him, they laugh at Him, they jeered at His majesty, and tormented His heart. They tore his back with the Roman scourge till His bone were showing. Then, they set Him in an old chair as though it were a throne. They crowned Him with thorns. They cast an old purple robe on His blood-raw shoulders, they mocked and derided Him, as though He were a fake king. For a scepter, they gave Him a reed. For honor, they give Him spit. For the kiss of reverence, they gave Him lips of mockery and blasphemy. Instead of bowing before Him as their King, they blindfolded Him, and smote Him in the face.
He was despised and afflicted. Then Jesus was led forth to Calvary’s cross. He was nailed to the Cross by cruel and wicked hands. The crude mob heckled and taunted Him as He suffered. His soul suffered the unsheathed wrath of God. The wrath of the Almighty against our sins covered all His soul. He cries out, “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me.” His griefs, His sorrows, His sufferings, His woes were unspeakable. Jesus suffered the wrath of God for all our sins.
At the last, He cried, “It is finished.” He then, bowed His head, and gave up the ghost. He suffered all that we ought to have suffered. He finished the payment for sin. He obeyed every jot and tittle of the law of God. He paid it all – not half-way, but all the way, not near to the boundary, but to its end. He didn’t merely sip from the cup of God’s wrath, He had drained it to the very dregs, He turned the cup of God's wrath bottom upwards, His soul swallowed all it contained, there was not a single drop left on the brim. Then He cried out, “It is finished!” . The Guilty Substitute didn't die for any sin of His own; Jesus laid down His life for your sins. The sufferings are finished. The debt is paid in full. Divine Justice is satisfied. The Law is magnified. Righteousness is established. The complete Atonement is now made. Justification for sinners is entirely done.
The Substitute's Finished Work: Don’t try and put your last touches on the finished work of Christ. Your fingers are black with sin and this insults and angers the Lord. Jesus Christ is the apple of God’s eye. For a sinner to try to put his finishing touches on Christ’s atonement is a stab at the eye of God.
Poor bankrupt sinner, what do you say to this? Will you now rest solely on Christ's Bloody Sacrifice for sinners? God is only satisfied with His Son’s atoning sacrifice, are you? God thinks Jesus’ sacrifice is enough. Do you? You can only be saved by faith in Christ, that is, in Christ's Atoning Blood alone. Not your own works, or feelings, or experience. Christ wants no preparation from you. Simply cast yourself down on Christ, on His promises and mercies. Submit to Him and let Him save you by His free grace and pure mercy. Cast yourself down in the dust before Him, and ONCE FOR ALL have done with your wretched self. Rely not on anything you can do, or think, or say, or know; rest alone on Jesus only and you are saved forever on the spot. Sinner, look to Jesus, and you are saved. You may be thinking, “My sins are too many”? But His Blood Atonement is miraculous and can cover all your sins. Do you say, “My heart is too hard”? Jesus can soften it with His blood. Do you cry, “I am so unworthy”? Jesus loves the unworthy. Do you feel, “I am so vile and sinful?” It is the vile Jesus came to save. Down in the dust, sinner; down, down with yourself and up with Christ, who suffered for your sins on Calvary’s cross. Turn your eye there, see Jesus only. He suffers, He bleeds, He dies. He is buried. He rises again. He ascends on high. He saves to the uttermost. Trust Him now and you are eternally safe. Give up all other trusts, and rely on Jesus alone, alone on Jesus, and you shall pass from death unto life. Simply and wholly rest and trust in Jesus Christ Himself.
