This is the plain and simple truth about the living Savior that makes the believing sinner's heart free and pure. JESUS, the Son of God, God manifest in the flesh, bled and died to save us from every stain of sin; to save us from our propensity to sin, from our love of sin, from the power of our vile habits, and the snares of Satan. Faith in His Blood is vital to your forgiveness of sins God in the flesh has come to save us from death eternal, to save us from the wrath to come. God has sent us a perfect Savior. We could never save ourselves, but One has come who can. Oh how I need a great Savior, for I am a great sinner. A little Savior would not have answered my sin problem, for my great sin needed a great Atonement, and my hard heart needed great Grace to soften it.
Now the Man who came down from heaven to earth to save us was God Himself — Jesus of Nazareth — He was nothing less than God — counting it not robbery to be equal with God. He is great in his nature, for as God He is infinite — Omnipotent. He is great also in what He has done. Look to Jesus on the Cross; it is the Son of God pouring out His life for sinners that they may live through His death. There must be great merit in such a sinless blood sacrifice. He who gave Himself there upon the cross, being very God of very God, and certainly man — there can be no limit set to the value of the Atonement which He made for sinners. It is a great Savior that God gives to sinners. And now that Jesus has risen from the dead and lives to save any sinner to the uttermost that will come to Him.
All your confidence must be placed in the Crucified Savior. Christ Crucified is the foundation of all our everlasting hopes, for Christ could not have risen from the dead if He had not first died. Turn your confidence to Christ Jesus suffering in the sinner’s stead. “Look unto Me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth,” is a call from Christ upon the Cross. Remember that all your hope must hang upon JESUS who hung upon the cross, and died there for you. God must punish sin, He cannot let sin go unpunished without compromising the purity of His Justice. Therefore, the Law of God must be honored, His justice must be vindicated, His righteousness must be upheld, your crimes must be expiated (atoned for) by suffering and death. Who, then, shall endure the penance or make the reparation? Shall the dread sentence of eternal wrath fall upon all mankind? No; Jesus steps in between God and the sinner, Christ took upon Himself the wrath of God, and His shoulders ran with divine blood.
Do you ask why was a perfect sinless man was crucified upon a criminal's cross. This is the answer: “Jesus was moved with compassion.” “He saved others; Himself he could not save.” Christ was so moved with compassion, that compassion, as it were, did eat Him up. Jesus suffered and died for sinful men, and after He had died and was in the grave for three days, He rose again from the dead. He has now gone into his glory; now He is living at the right hand of the Father.
By nature, and by practice too, we are all guilty, and we all deserve to be cast into hell — the best of us as well as the worst. So, let us all go to the Cross where the Savior carried the great load of our sin upon Himself, and bore the consequences we deserved, that He might set us free from sin forever. Let us look up to Him, and, by faith, view the flowing of His blood from those many wounds that He received for us. Look into that dear face of His — view the image of matchless misery and majesty combined; see His thorn-crowned brow, and all the marks of shame that cruel men put upon Him. Hear Him cry, “My God, my God, why hast you forsaken Me?” and, as we see Him die all alone, Believe in Him. Only Jesus can speak peace and pardon to your guilty spirit. “I the chief of sinners am, But Jesus died for me.”
Away to the Cross; behold His thorny crown. Flee at once, poor guilty sinner, and by childlike faith cling to the great Atonement which was made by the Lord Jesus Christ upon the tree, and let that your fear of death be ended once for all. Go straight away to the Cross; go directly to Christ Himself for all your salvation. You can't get any credit for your own salvation, Jesus Christ must get all the glory for saving you, or you'll have to go to Hell where you belong. Jesus must do it all, on your best day and on your worst day, you are a crooked rotten wretch. Face it - you're nothing but a nothing - you are altogether unworthy of God's mercy.
How then shall the prisoner at the bar of God's judgment escape? Is there any possibility? At the Cross, God showed how He might be just, and yet be gracious to guilty sinner! The Almighty said, “Sinner, I must and will punish you on account of sin! But I love you; my heart longs to have mercy on you. My justice says ‘smite,’ but My love hold back my hand, and says, ‘spare, spare the sinner!’ Oh! sinner, my heart has devised the plan of salvation; my Son, the pure and perfect shall stand and die in your place, and be accounted guilty, and you, the guilty one, shall stand in my Son’s stead and be accounted Righteous!”
The transposition of Christ and the sinner is the way of salvation. Here's the Gospel plain and simple: Christ was spotless; sinners were vile. Christ said, “My Father, treat me as if I were a sinner; treat the sinner as if he were Me. Smite Me as sternly as you please, for I will bear your wrath, so your grace can be extended to the sinner, and your justice may be satisfied completely.” The trusting sinner now stands in Christ’s stead with the Saviour’s garments on, and he is accepted by God only because of what Christ did for him. Do you say that such an exchange as this is unjust? Will you say that God should not have made his Son a substitute for us, and have let us go? Remember - it was purely voluntary on the part of Christ. Christ was willing to stand in our stead; He had to drink the cup of our punishment, and He was quite willing to do it.
God made Jesus to our Substitute. The Bible says in II Corinthians 5:21, God “hath made Jesus to be sin for us;” Christ did stand in the room, place, and stead of every sinner, Christ stood in the sinner’s place, and any sinner that will trust to Christ alone can now stand in Christ’s place justified and innocent in God's sight. Your sins will taken off your soul and put on Christ’s head. Jesus was never was a sinner; he never knew sin. “Sinner, you can become like Christ; and Christ takes the place of the sinner!” The guilty sinner is treated as if he were Christ, and Christ is treated as if he were the sinner. That is what is meant by the Scripture II Corinthians 5:21; "God hath made Jesus to be Sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Christ.”
