The Everlasting Righteousness-Bonar2
1. The Heidelberg Catechism (used in the Scotch Church, along with Calvin's, till superseded by the Westminster) asks, "What profit takest thou by Christ's holy conception and nativity?" and answers, "That He is our Mediator, and doth cover my sins with His innocencv and perfect holiness, in which I was conceived, that they may not come into the sight of God."
2. "These ceremonial observances were so many confessions of sin. Christ, then, who was made sin for us, conformed to these" (Ames, Medulla Theologica, B. 1. ch. 21). "Hereby (by circumcision) He was represented to the world not only as a subject, but also as a sinner. For though He was pure and holy, yet this ordinance passing upon Him seemed to imply as if corruption had indeed been in Him, which must be cut off by mortification....Thus was He represented as a sinner to the world, though most holy and pure in Himself" (Flavel, Fountain of Life-Sermon 19). "He was circumcised, and kept the law to deliver us from the condemnation of it....Therefore we must seek our righteousness, not in the law, but in Christ, who hath fulfilled the same, and given us freely His fulfilling" (Latimer on Matt 2:1,2).
3. The old hymns have not lost sight of those truths. As specimens, I give the following: - "Stillat excisos pueri per artus -- Eficacious blood drops from Efficax noxas abolere sanguis; -- The pierced limbs of the boy Obligat morti pretiosa totum -- To abolish punishments;Stilla cruorem." -- A precious drop requires the whole bloodshed to death.Again: "Vix natus, ecce lacteum -- Behold the infant, scarcely born,Profundit Infans sanguinem, -- Sheds the milk blood,Libamen est hoc funeris --
A sample of death,Amoris hoc praeludium." -- A prelude of love.And again: "Dixit; et Patris veneratus iram -- He spoke; and having respected Sustinet vulnus silicis cruentae; -- The wrath of the Father endures the wound of the bloody rock;Et jugum legis subit ipse, servis -- And he himself submits to the yoke of the lawUt juga demat." -- In order to take away the yokes for his servants. --
Editor Little as these hymns contain of the finished work of the substitution, occasionally the great truth breaks
4. The evangelist here translates directly from the Hebrew, and differs from the Septuagint.
5. The Heidelberg Catechism asks, "What believest thou when thou sayest, He suffered?" and the answer is, "That He, all the time of His life which He led on earth, but especially at the end thereof, sustained the wrath of God, both in body and soul, against the sin of mankind, that He might by His passion, as the only propitiatory sacrifice, deliver our body and soul from everlasting damnation, and purchase unto us the favour of God, righteousness, and everlasting life."
6. The old catechetical exposition of the Heidelberg Catechism brings out this fully: "The Godhead hath so strengthened the human nature, and upheld it, that it could bear the weight of the wrath of God against sin. It hath also given such dignity to the short sufferings of the human nature, that it