Thursday, May 14, 2009

His anger was spent upon Christ



My brethren, what a discovery was that when we learned the secret that we were to be saved not by what we were or were to be; but, saved by what Christ had done for us! The simplicity of the cross is the grandest of all revelations. “Look unto me and be ye saved, all ye ends of the earth.” Why it is as simple as the interpretation which Joseph gave to the dream; but in its simplicity lies a great part of its sweetness. How was it that I was such a fool as not to understand it before, that for every sinner who was truly a sinner, and had no righteousness of his own, Jesus Christ is made righteousness and salvation; and that every sinner who confesses with broken heart that he deserved God’s wrath, may know that Jesus has suffered all God’s wrath for him, and that therefore God is no longer angry with him, for all his anger has been spent upon the person of Jesus Christ.

How sweet it is to understand that all our soul’s terrors and alarms are only meant to bring us to the cross; that they are not intended to make us look at ourselves, to search for comfort there, nor intended to set us upon paving a way to heaven by our own exertions, but to lead us to Jesus.

From a sermon entitled "Have You Forgotten Him?," delivered March 11, 1866. Image by David Blaikie under Creative Commons License.

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