A Sermon by George Innes
Psalm 40:6,7. Sacrifice and offering Thou didst not desire; mine ears hast Thou opened: burnt offering and sin offering hast Thou not required. Then said I, Lo, I come: in the volume of the book it is written of me.
2. How have all qualities needed for a sufficient atonement met in Christ?
Without Him there was no salvation for our wretched and desperately wicked souls, but He took our nature on Him, in the most amazing condescension, in full consciousness that He possessed all the qualities needed to make an atonement. Thus He announces his determination to come forth for that purpose, saying, “Mine ear hast Thou opened; lo, I come: in the volume of the book it is written of Me”. It is for us who profess to trust solely in His blood for pardon of our great guilt, to consider, not once and in a passing manner, but by constant and daily meditation, the excellency of His sacrifice. Only thus can our faith in it be strengthened and kept in vigorous operation. Thus too will our love and reverence for God be heightened, as we admire the wonderful manner in which value, connection, innocence and willingness (2) all meet in Christ set forth as our propitiation. We cannot speak worthily of the theme, but let each of us consider it more attentively, day by day, in the Scriptures which testify of Jesus, for only thus can we be rooted and grounded in love.
(1.) We beseech you to note the sufficiency of His sacrifice in value. If it is required that the atonement on the altar must be equal in value to the souls to be redeemed, shall it be said that the blood of God’s only begotten Son – who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself as a sacrifice, the just for the unjust – is not sufficient to make atonement for the sins of all His people? Surely one pang or agony of Him – who, being in the form of God, counted it not robbery to be equal with God – is proof of God’s indignation against sin, passing what would have been given if we had all perished! Assuredly the holiness and justice of God were never so terribly displayed as when it was seen that His own Son could obtain the redemption of His people only by bearing the iniquities of them all, and shedding His blood to atone for their guilt. What more awful manifestation of holiness can be conceived than the Lord God Almighty hiding His countenance from His own only-begotten One? This was because Christ had taken on Himself the sins of His people and unchangeably resolving that, till justice should be satisfied to the utmost of its demands, God would not turn away His wrath. And though it involved giving His well-beloved Son to the death, He would not let the cup pass till it was drunk! Amid the rending rocks and opening graves was the truth proclaimed with eternal strength: “Without shedding of blood there is no remission”. Therefore, because justice must be satisfied, the Son of God purchased His Church with His own blood.
(2.) He was connected with those for whom He died. Though it was His divine nature which gave unspeakable value to His blood, yet He was made in all points like as we are. Before saying, “Lo I come,” He declares, “Mine ears hast Thou opened” – “a body hast Thou prepared Me”. He by whom, and to whom, and through whom are all things, took on Him the seed of Abraham, and became man as well as God. “Great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh.” Not merely had He a human body, but also a human soul, capable of all the sinless feelings of our nature. He was linked in the tie of human friendship. There was a disciple “whom Jesus loved”. He was touched with a feeling of our infirmities. At the tomb of Lazarus, “Jesus wept”. And, more wonderful still, He in whom were “hid all the treasures of wisdom” had a soul united to Him which “grew in wisdom”. Therefore He was fit to stand as head and representative of our race before God, to make atonement.
When the first Adam stood in innocence, he was our head. When he fell, we all derived from him a corrupt nature. In him we all died. Now here stands a second Adam, deriving His nature immediately from God and free from every taint of sin, who offers Himself to bear the iniquities of many and to be dealt with as guilty and liable to experience wrath. Thus, having life in Himself, He will give life to as many as believe on His name. Much as we may marvel at the disinterested love which prompted this offer, we cannot but say that its acceptance was perfectly reasonable and just. It was accepted and, as in Adam all died, so in Christ are all believers made alive. His life is infused into their souls, renewing them in the spirit of their minds and creating them anew unto good works.
Their connection with Christ is, to believers, as much a matter of experience and actual operation as the connection between the natural man and the first Adam. As the natural life derived from Adam works to disobedience, so the life derived from Christ works to obedience and the purifying of the heart through faith. Therefore, by this connection, there is an admirable fitness, coherence and propriety in the whole Scripture plan of atonement through Christ’s blood, and in justification by faith.
Christ laid down His life for the sheep. They who are justified by His blood are His own, drawn to Him by the cords of a man and the bands of a brother. They have their souls knit to His, and do not live in themselves, but by His Spirit living in them (Gal 2:20). Therefore, when He presents them before the presence of His Father, does not this close and intimate connection between Him and His people entitle Him to ask that they – who have Him formed in them the hope of glory – be with Him where He is, and have eternal life with Him in fullness of joy for evermore?
(3.) Christ is supremely qualified to make propitiation for sins, because of His spotless innocence. The blood to make atonement on the altar must be that of a pure and holy victim. He who is substituted for the guilty, to save their souls, must be perfect in His innocence. Where can such a victim be found except in the holy Jesus? He was without spot, and unrebukeable in the midst of a perverse generation. His life was the fulfilling of the law, for love to God and love to man animated His whole career. Of His love to God who shall speak worthily? We do not know what passed in the communion He had with His Father and, if we did know it, we could not utter the fullness of the intense love which made Him say, “I delight to do Thy will, O God”.
There are times when even a poor and imperfect believer finds his heart so full with love to God that he cannot utter one half of what he feels. And shall we dare for one moment to compare our love with His? His love glowed with the intensest, purest flame; His zeal never flagged. He counted it no laborious task, but His meat and drink, to fulfill the law; it was the natural employment of His heart. “Thy law is within My heart.” Though surrounded by temptations and beset by enemies who were considering how they might allure Him to evil, they never could succeed in raising within Him a single wish that was in the slightest degree sinful, or in making Him move a hair’s breath from the strict line of duty. The commandments of God are exceeding broad, and make man see an end of all perfection. But Jesus kept them all. Sin, His deadly foe, could not succeed in throwing the slightest stain on His heart.
When the time came for offering Himself up, if a vestige of sin could have been found in His heart, or of guilt on His lips, or of iniquity on His hands, His sacrifice must have been rejected as incompetent; the horror of His undertaking would have been trodden in the dust; and Satan would have triumphed, keeping the world still under thralldom. Burning with eager desire thus to overthrow Christ, the prince of this world came, but neither in His past life could the accuser of the brethren find aught to accuse Him of, nor could Satan now find in Him any hold by which to overturn His innocence. That innocence stood invulnerable, unassailable. It defied Satan’s most cunning wiles, his fiercest assaults. “The prince of this world cometh,” said Jesus, “and hath nothing in Me.”
To evince the impotence of his malice, when Satan stirred up his slaves to take away the life of the Lamb of God, he could supply them with no slanderous charges against Him that were supported by even plausible testimony. The witnesses did not agree in their evidence. The charge the rulers of the Jews brought, on which the Redeemer was doomed to die, claimed that He, being a man, made Himself equal with God. Before Pilate He was accused of making Himself a King. But His Father gave Him witness that He spoke the truth in these things, by the resurrection from the dead – declaring Him to be the Son of God with power and exalting Him far above all principality and power to be the King of kings and Lord of lords.
But through these accusations Jesus was condemned to die and was led forth bearing His cross. As if to render His innocence more conspicuous, slander was then constrained to be dumb and the tongue of calumny was fettered in silence. Before then wicked men had said, “Behold a man gluttonous and a wine bibber, a friend of publicans and sinners,” and “He casteth out devils by the power of Beelzebub”. Now the falsehood of such charges was too apparent to be hazarded; and it was then manifest that He and the prince of this world had nothing in common. Jesus was holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners. The words with which they reviled Him were such only as made their blindness and cruelty of heart more evident: “He saved others, Himself He cannot save”.
The innocence of the victim who was then bearing “our sins in His own body on the tree” had been conspicuous through life; by two witnesses it was attested as bright and remarkable in the hour of His death. “We receive the due reward of our deeds”, said the penitent malefactor to his companion, “but this man hath done nothing amiss.” And the centurion who watched Him “glorified God, saying, Certainly this was a righteous man”. From the cross, His innocence sent efficacious influence into the hearts of spectators, and already Christ crucified drew souls to Himself (Jn 12:32). Truly, an innocence which could thus, with all things against it, triumph in its sufferings and death, over evil and idolatrous hearts, proves Jesus fit to be set forth as a propitiation for our sins.
(4.) Jesus was a willing victim. What need is there for a laboured proof of His willingness? If He was unwilling, who could have ascended into heaven to bring Christ down? If He was not willing, could He not have returned on high any moment He chose? Did He not show that He was a willing victim after He spoke to the men who came out to seize Him and they fell to the ground as dead, yet He yielded Himself up to them to be led to scourging and death? But His willingness to be made a curse for sinners, that He might redeem them who were under the curse, was not the consent of ignorance of what was involved for Him in such an undertaking.
When He said, “Lo, I come,” He went forth knowing all that should come upon Him. He who dwelt in the bosom of the Father, from time everlasting, knew how evil and abominable sin is in His sight, and what a tremendous infliction of wrath was due to the vindication of justice, so long despised and insulted. He knew well what tribulation and anguish He was undertaking to suffer when He offered to make atonement to the uttermost for such as should come unto God by Him. He bore without expression of grief the sufferings inflicted by the hand of men. “The Lord God”, He says, “hath opened Mine ear, and I was not rebellious, neither turned away back. I gave My back to the smiters, and My cheeks to them that plucked off the hair. I hid not My face from shame or spitting.”
And when He came to be baptized with His baptism of fire, even to undergo the final sharp trial of His Father’s wrath, which made Him “exceeding sorrowful, even unto death,” and pressed Him into such a depth of agony that He sweat “as it were great drops of blood”, we know that He submitted His will to His Father’s, saying, “Not My will but Thine be done”. And on the cross, when the extreme pangs of His suffering were drawing near, His Father hid His face from Him, to the unutterable trouble of His spirit. Then that heavenly light which had been the comfort of His heart was cut off, and He was left alone, as if guilty, bearing the weight of wrath due to His Church’s guilt in darkness and sorrow, encompassed by the prince of this world and his legions. Knowing that this was their hour and power, they burned to destroy Him. They hoped for success, but He upheld His will.
In this frightful hour, Jesus went calmly on, willingly submitting Himself to bear “our sins in His own body on the tree”. He proved His willingness by consummating the sacrifice. His enemies had assailed His life, but it was impregnable to their attacks. No man could take away His life. Death entered the world by sin; but He had never sinned, and therefore death had no power over Him. Here is a difference, which we must notice, between the death of all other men and that of Christ. “No man hath power over the spirit to retain the spirit” in the hour of death. “We must needs die.” But no one could take Christ’s life from Him. He laid it down of Himself (Jn 10:18).
To complete the sacrifice, it was necessary that Christ should die. Death was there, exulting in the prospect of a victim coming under its power, such as it had never smitten before – even the Prince of life being slain by its dart. All that was implied in Jesus dying we cannot know but, from the strong dread of it expressed in the Psalms, and the earnest supplications not to be left in hell or suffered to see corruption, we must suppose that something fearful was involved. As it was the last blow in the Redeemer’s suffering, so it was the most awful. But, however great its terrors, Christ looked both at the blow about to be struck and at the effects which would result from it, and perceived that, if He permitted death to bury its sting in Him, that enemy would no more have power over those that should believe on His name. Thus Christ, in the same spirit in which He had said, “Lo, I come,” now cried with a loud voice, “It is finished . . . and gave up the ghost”. Bowing His head, He made reconciliation for iniquity and brought in an everlasting righteousness.
And now, soul who knows that there is no sacrifice sufficient to make atonement for sin but Christ, and that the sacrifice of Christ is all-sufficient, why are you so perpetually turning away from the refuge God has set before you and seeking rest in the midst of your iniquities? You would wish to be saved without Christ if you could, but it is clearly impossible. Yet although this has been demonstrated to be impossible, you are resisting invitations to salvation by faith, and struggling against believing. I see no help for you but in Him, who was lifted up to make reconciliation, drawing you to Himself by His Spirit. “Lord, I believe, help Thou mine unbelief.”
[1] Taken from The Free Church Pulpit, vol 3, and continued from last month. Under the first head, the preacher answered the question: “What kind of atonement was needed for sin?”
[2] These represent the sub-divisions used to answer the question posed as the first head. See last month’s section of the sermon.