The old, old story

‘In due time Christ died for the ungodly.’ Romans 5:6

Suggested Further Reading: John 5:39–47

Unbeliever, if God cannot and will not forgive the sins of penitent men without taking their punishment, rest assured he will surely bring you to judgment. If, when Christ, God’s Son, had imputed sin laid on him, God smote him, how will he smite you who are his enemy, and who have your own sins upon your head? God seemed at Calvary, as it were, to take an oath—sinner, hear it!—he seemed, as it were, to take an oath and say, ‘By the blood of my Son I swear that sin must be punished,’ and if it is not punished in Christ for you, it will be punished in you for yourselves. Is Christ yours, sinner? Did he die for you? Do you trust him? If you do, he died for you. Do you say, ‘No, I do not?’ Then remember that if you live and die without faith in Christ, for every idle word and for every ill act that you have done, stroke for stroke, and blow for blow, vengeance must chastise you. Again, to another class of you, this word. If God has in Christ made an atonement and opened a way of salvation, what must be your guilt who try to open another way; who say, ‘I will be good and virtuous; I will attend to ceremonies; I will save myself’? Fool that you are, you have insulted God in his tenderest point, for you have insulted his Son. You have said, ‘I can do it without that blood;’ you have, in fact, trampled on the blood of Christ, and said, ‘I need it not.’ Oh, if the sinner who repents not be damned, with what accumulated terrors shall he be damned, who, in addition to his impenitence, heaps affront upon the person of Christ by going about to establish his own righteousness. Leave it!

For meditation: The readings for most of the past week have concentrated on the shed blood and atoning sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ. Do these truths cause you relief, satisfaction and grateful thanksgiving in response to his love (1 John 4:10,19)? If not, you either hate him or couldn’t care less about him, which in God’s sight boils down to the same thing. ‘How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation?’ (Hebrews 2:3).

Sermon no. 446
30 March (1862)