9. The Person and Work of Christ
9. The Person and Work of Christ
This is the captivity and bondage whence Christ delivered us, redeemed and loosed us. His blood, His death, His patience in suffering rebukes and wrongs, His prayers and fastings, His meekness and fulfilling of the uttermost point of the law appeased the wrath of God, brought the favor of God to us again, obtained that God should love us first and be our Father, and that a merciful Father, that will consider our infirmities and weakness, and will give us His Spirit again (which was taken away in the Fall of Adam) to rule, govern, and strengthen us, and to break the bonds of Satan, wherein we were so straitly33 bound. When Christ is thuswise preached, and the promises rehearsed which are contained in the prophets, in the Psalms, and in diverse places of the five books of Moses, which preaching is called the gospel or glad tidings, then the hearts of those who are elect and chosen begin to wear soft and to melt at the bounteous mercy of God and kindness shown of Christ. For when the evangelion is preached, the Spirit of God enters into those whom God has ordained and appointed unto eternal life, and opens their inward eyes, and works such belief in them. When the woeful consciences feel and taste how sweet a thing the bitter death of Christ is, and how merciful and loving God is through Christ’s purchasing and merits, they begin to love again, and to consent to the law of God, how that it is good and ought so to be, and that God is righteous Who made it, and desire to fulfill the law (even as a sick man desires to be whole), and are an hungered and thirst after more righteousness, and after more strength to fulfill the law more perfectly. And in all that they do, or omit and leave undone, they seek God’s honor and His will with meekness, ever condemning the imperfection of their deeds by the law.
Now Christ stands us in double stead, and serves us in two ways. First, He is our redeemer, deliverer, reconciler, mediator, intercessor, advocate or attorney, solicitor, our hope, comfort, shield, protection, defender, strength, health, satisfaction, and salvation. His blood, His death, all that He ever did, is ours. And Christ Himself, with all that He is or can do, is ours. His blood-shedding, and all that He did, does me as good service as though I myself had done it. And God (as great as He is) is mine, with all that He has, as an husband is His wife’s, through Christ and His purchasing.