6. Chapter Three
Chapter Three T he Encouragement and Triumph that Christ's Death Provides for Faith in Justification2. Now, having guided your faith towards the correct object, Christ, and specifically Christ in his death, let's examine what encouragement and support faith can draw from Christ's death for justification. Surely, that which has long ago satisfied God himself for the sins of countless souls now in heaven, can certainly serve to satisfy the heart and conscience of any sinner on earth, in any doubts regarding the guilt of any sins that may arise. We see that the apostle Paul, after his extensive discussion of justification by Christ's righteousness in the earlier part of his letter to the Romans, and having demonstrated how it abounds in every way, Romans 5, he now in Romans 8, sits down as if overwhelmed by conviction, as in Romans 8:31, "What then shall we say to these things?"
He speaks as one satisfied, even astonished by the abundance of evidence; having nothing to say, but only to marvel at God and Christ in this work;
and therefore immediately throws down the gauntlet, challenging a debate on this point with all comers.
Let conscience and worldly reason, law and sin, hell and devils, bring all their strength. "Who is he that will bring any charge against God's elect?"
"Who shall condemn?" Paul boldly answers them all, and carries the argument with these few words, "It is God that justifies, it is Christ that died." And (as in Romans 8:37) "we are more than conquerors in all these."
It was this that brought the prodigal son home, the realization that in his "father's house there was bread enough." And so too, the author of Psalm
130, when his soul was in deep distress because of his sins, Psalm 130:1-2, found comfort in the knowledge that there was "plenteous redemption with him." Christ's redemption is not merely a price or ransom equivalent, or making due satisfaction according to the just punishment of sin, but it is
"plenteous redemption." There is an abundance of "the gift of righteousness," Romans 5:17 and "unsearchable riches of Christ,"
Ephesians 3:8. Yes, 1 Timothy 1:14, "the grace of our Lord," that is of Christ, was abundant, but the word reaches farther, "it was overfull, redundant, more than enough." And yet (says Paul, 1 Timothy 1:13), I had sins enough to pardon, as one would think, that might exhaust it, "I was a blasphemer." But I found so much grace in Christ, even more than I knew what to do with.
I will not dwell as extensively on this first aspect of Christ's dying, as on the three following, because it is the main subject of another discourse, which, God willing, I intend to publish, though in a different format. But to give a taste, let's consider a few specifics, showing how Christ's satisfaction may be set against the guilt of a sinner's offenses. What is there that can be said to intensify sin in general, or any person's particular sins, that cannot be
answered with this, "Christ has died," and something be considered in it, which the conscience may set against it? So that whatever evil, according to the rules of spiritual reason, (which the righteous law uses, and contains as the foundation of its righteousness in condemning or intensifying sin), a person's conscience may suggest to be in sin. In contrast, a person's faith, according to the same rules of true spiritual reason, can show a more transcendent goodness to have been in Christ's death, which the gospel reveals, and so may oppose the one to the other, and have as good reason to show why sin should not condemn, from Christ's death, as conscience can have, that the law may condemn.
(1.) First, is sin the transgression of the law? Christ's death, the lawgiver, was subjected to the law; and will not that make amends? Is sin the debasement of God's glory, manifested in his word and works? Christ's death was the debasement and emptying of the brightness of his glory in the highest measure, who was God personally manifested in the flesh. The one is but as the darkening of the sun's shine or luster on a wall, but the other is as the obscuring of the sun itself. Sin's highest evil lies in offending God, but Christ's righteousness is (in contrast) the righteousness of God himself, or Jehovah made our righteousness. So that God in our sin is considered but as the object against whom; but God in this our righteousness, is the subject from whom and in whom this righteousness comes and is seated. And so his
Godhead correspondingly gives a higher worth to it, by how much the alliance which the subject has to an action of its own, that proceeds from it, is closer than that which an object has, against which the action is committed.
(2.) Or secondly, what specific intensifications or circumstances are there in your sins, to weigh you down, with which some circumstances in Christ's
obedience and death may not be paralleled, to lift you up again?
First, is it the magnitude of your sin in the substance of the act committed? Has there been wickedness in your wickedness, as the prophet speaks? Consider what guilt, of how heinous crimes, God allowed to be laid to Christ's charge by profane men, when he was made an offering for sin.
He died as a traitor to his prince, and a blasphemer of God in the highest kind of blasphemy, as making himself equal with God; an impostor, a seducer, yes, a devil, yes, a prince of devils, than whom a murderer was deemed more worthy to live. Which accusations, though unjustly charged on him by men, yet by God were so ordered as just, in respect of his bearing our sins. For him who was holiness itself to be made the greatest of sinners, yes, to be "made sin," and the worst of sins, and accordingly to suffer from God and men, what greater satisfaction for the taking away of sins can be desired or imagined?
Or secondly, do you intensify your sins by the wickedness of your heart in sinning, and say that the inward behavior thereof has been much worse than the outward? Look into the heart of Jesus Christ dying, and behold him struggling with his Father's wrath, you will find the sufferings of his soul more than those of his body, and in them to lie the essence of his sufferings.
Thirdly, may your sin be intensified, in that you committed it with great delight and eagerness, and poured out your heart unto it? Consider that Christ offered himself more willingly than ever you sinned. "Lo, I come," says he in Psalm 40:8, "I delight to do your will," and "how am I constrained until it be accomplished!" Luke 12:50. And though to show how great an evil and misery it was in itself, he showed an aversion to it; yet as it was his Father's will for our salvation, he heartily embraced and drank of that cup to the bottom.
Fourthly, did you sin with much deliberation, when you could have avoided it? There was in this circumstance in Christ's sufferings to answer that that he knew all he was to suffer, and yet yielded up himself, John 18:4.
Fifthly, have you sinned presumptuously, and made a covenant with death and hell? Christ in like manner offered up himself by a covenant and agreement with his Father to do so.
Sixthly, are there any special circumstances of time and place that intensify your sins?
First, that such a significant person in the church should scandalize the name of God by sinning. Well, how significant a person was Christ? Even equal with God the Father and yet how greatly humbled, even to death; his offices of King, Priest, and Prophet being debased with him. How great a name did he have! Hebrews 1:4, which nonetheless was dishonored more than ever any man's.
Or secondly, that you sinned at such a time or in such a company, which sometimes serve to make a sin more heinous. Consider how God contrived to have the shame and affliction of his Son's death intensified by all these circumstances. It was of deaths the most accursed, at a time most solemn, in a place most infamous, with company most wretched.
Thus we might find in Christ's suffering and satisfaction made, that which would fittingly answer to anything in our sins, and so thereby we would be more comforted. And though the whole body of his sufferings do stand and answer for the whole mass of our sins, yet the consideration of such specifics will greatly contribute to the comforting of a humbled and dejected soul, about the specifics of its sins.
Therefore (to conclude) strive to get your hearts and consciences distinctly and specifically satisfied in the all-sufficiency of worth and merit
which is in the satisfaction that Christ has made. As it is a fault and defect in humiliation, that people content themselves with a general understanding and notion that they are sinners, and so never become thoroughly humbled.
So it is a defect in their faith, that they content themselves with a superficial and general belief that Christ died for sinners, their hearts not being specifically satisfied about the transcendent all-sufficiency of his death.
And hence it is, that in time of temptation, when their abundant sinfulness comes distinctly to be revealed to them, and charged upon them, they are then amazed and their faith is confounded, as not seeing that in Christ which might answer to all that sinfulness. But as God saw that in Christ's death which satisfied him, so you should strive by faith to see that worth in it which may satisfy God, and then your faith will also be satisfied. If a man were to argue for his life some difficult and complex controversy, wherein are many great and strong objections to be refuted, he would be sure to examine, and study, and ponder all that might be said on that other side which he were to uphold, in way of answer to them, and to get such a clear and convincing understanding as might make the truth of his position apparent and manifest through those clouds of objections that hang in the way.
Now you will all be thus called one day to argue for your souls, sooner or later, and therefore such skill you should strive to acquire in Christ's righteousness, how in its fullness and perfection it answers to all your sinfulness; that your hearts may be able to oppose it against all that may be said of any particular, in or about your sins; that in all the conflicts of your spirits, you may see that in it which would clear your whole score; and that if God would but be pleased to impute it to you, you might say, I dare
immediately come to an account with him, and settle scores with his law and justice.
Thus much of the first thing made the object of faith, namely, Christ as dying.
Part Three: Christ Risen — The Power of Justifying Faith "…Yes rather, that is risen again." —Romans 8:34
Monergism Books