THE DEATH OF CHRIST

THE DEATH OF CHRIST

“He .. . came by water and blood”. (1 John 5: 6) Our blessed Lord came by death. “For this cause came I into the world”. (John 18: 37) The death of Him who was the Son of God is the greatest thing that ever was accomplished.

There is nothing for us except through His death. It is through His death, feeding on it, that we enter into every blessing. Some look for blessing from His incarnation, but they are in error; they want to retain the first man. There is no blessing - no escape from judgment, except through His death. For every believer there is in His death a complete judicial removal of all that was between God and him, and he appropriates this by faith. I wish I could convey to ^[p. 179] you the deep sense I have of the moral necessity that Adam should die! That order of man is gone in the death of Christ. In Christ I am of the new order. Many a believer knows his sins forgiven who rests his faith on the promise of faith, rather than on the work of Christ. Therefore he has not deliverance from sin, or from the earth; and he knows nothing of circumcision. I find it a helpful question to ask, Is it the weight and burden on your own conscience that has been removed by the work of Christ? or, is it the weight and burden on you, as God sees it, which has been removed?

If only the former, there will be many removals, or, rather, there will be many burdens to be removed. While in the latter case the same faith which frees you from the burden on your conscience does the far greater thing, it frees you from all that you are in the sight of God. What a blessed deliverance!