Category: Jesus

He Atoned for Your Sins on the Cross

One of the sweetest statements from the lips of Jesus is this: ‘Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world’ (Matthew 25:34b). There is a plan of God designed for your salvation. It is not an afterthought or an attempt to correct a mistake. Rather, from all eternity, God determined that He would redeem for Himself a people, and that which He determined to do was, in fact, accomplished in the work of Jesus Christ, His atonement on the cross. Your salvation has been accomplished by a Savior, One who did for you what the Father determined He should do. He is your Surety, your Mediator, your Substitute, your Redeemer. He atoned for your sins on the cross.

—R.C. Sproul
The Truth of the Cross

Via: Of First Importance

The Justice and Love of God

If God were not just, there would be no demand for his Son to suffer and die. And if God were not loving, there would be no willingness for his Son to suffer and die. But God is both just and loving. Therefore his love is willing to meet the demands of his justice.

—John Piper
The Passion of Jesus Christ

Via: Of First Importance

J.I. Packer on the Atonement

An evangelical theologian, dying, cabled a colleague: ‘I am so thankful for the active obedience (righteousness) of Christ. No hope without it.’ As I grow old, I want to tell everyone who will listen: ‘I am so thankful for the penal substitutionary death of Christ. No hope without it.’

—J.I. Packer

Update: The theologian that J.I. Packer referred to in that quote was J. Gresham Machen, founder of Westminster Theological Seminary and the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. The colleague that Dr. Machen contacted via telegraph was Dr. John Murray, the noted Scottish theologian and faculty member at Westminster. More information about Dr. Machen and the founding of the OPC can be found here.

Via: Tony Reinke

We Have More For Us than Against Us

The victory lies not with us, but with Christ, who has taken on him both to conquer for us and to conquer in us. The victory lies neither in our own strength to get it, nor in our enemies’ strength to defeat it. If it lay with us, we might justly fear. But Christ will maintain his own government in us and take our part against our corruptions. They are his enemies as well as ours.

Let us therefore be ‘strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might’ (Ephesians 6:10). Let us not look so much at who our enemies are as at who our judge and captain is, nor at what they threaten, but at what he promises. We have more for us than against us. What coward would not fight when he is sure of victory?

—Richard Sibbes
The Bruised Reed

Via: Of First Importance

Treasuring Redemption’s Price

The key to understanding the cry of Jesus from the cross is found in Paul’s letter to the Galatians: “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: ‘Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree'” (Gal. 3:13, NIV).

To be cursed is to be removed from the presence of God, to be set outside the camp, to be cut off from His benefits. On the cross, Jesus was cursed. That is, He represented the Jewish nation of covenant breakers who were exposed to the curse and took the full measure of the curse on Himself. As the Lamb of God, the Sin Bearer, He was cut off from the presence of God.

On the cross, Jesus entered into the experience of forsakenness on our behalf. God turned His back on Jesus and cut Him off from all blessing, from all keeping, from all grace, and from all peace.

God is too holy to even look at iniquity. God the Father turned His back on the Son, cursing Him to the pit of hell while He hung on the cross. Here was the Son’s “descent into hell.” Here the fury of God raged against Him. His scream was the scream of the damned. For us.

Coram Deo: Reflect on what Jesus did for you on Calvary. Give thanks for the Lamb of God who bore your sin.

Matthew 27:46: “And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, ‘Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?’ that is, ‘My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?'”

Galatians 3:13: “Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us (for it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree’).”

Galatians 3:10: “For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse; for it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who does not continue in all things which are written in the book of the law, to do them.'”

—Dr. R.C. Sproul

Via: Ligonier Ministries Blog

He Hath Done All Things Well

‘He hath done all things well.’ Yes, from first to last, from our cradle to our grave, from the earliest pang of sin’s conviction to the latest thrill of sin’s forgiveness, from earth to heaven, this will be our testimony in all the way the Lord our God has led us in the wilderness. In providence and in grace, in every truth of His Word, in every lesson of His love, in every stroke of His rod, in every beam that has shone, and in every cloud that has shaded, in every element that has sweetened, and in every ingredient that has embittered, in all that has been mysterious, inscrutable, painful, and humiliating; in all that He gave, and in all that He took away, this testimony is His just due, and this our grateful acknowledgment through time and through eternity – ‘He hath done all things WELL.’

—Octavius Winslow
The Sympathy of Christ

Via: Of First Importance