THE LIFE GONE IN JUDGMENT NECESSARY FOR ATONEMENT
THE LIFE GONE IN JUDGMENT NECESSARY FOR ATONEMENT
Surely when you think it over you must see that if our blessed Lord was not a real Man with Man’s life, His blood would not have been a sacrifice for us. The life is in the blood, and because “the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same” (Hebrews 2: 14). He was born of a woman, born under the law. He died unto sin; an angel could not take man’s judgment on him. The judgment is on Man and a Man only — the seed of the woman, can bruise the serpent’s head: our Lord was “put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit” (1 Peter 3: 18). “Though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we him no more” (2 Corinthians 5: 16). If our blessed Lord was not a real Man He could not have been made sin; He could not have drunk the cup. He was always “the Son of man which is in heaven” (John 3: 13), ever the eternal life. He could not give up eternal life. He gave up the life of the flesh which He had taken; He shed His blood; the blood is the life of man, it is gone in judgment, and I, through grace, belong to a Man raised from the dead by [p. 137] the glory of the Father. The first man is historically ended before God in the cross. If the first man is not ended, you may be forgiven like a pious Jew, but you are not justified. You are justified because you see Christ risen out of the judgment due to you. The man under judgment is gone in His death; according to the type, the carcase of the sin-offering was burned without the camp; we are called to go forth unto Him without the camp. The apostle John more particularly insists on Christ come in flesh (His humanity) than even on His divinity. I am convinced that the present contention is but a revival of the contention of 1866. ———— would not admit of the Lord bearing judgment; he would admit only that He died. I remember I saw at once his mistake when I heard that. See how he attacks J.N.D. for saying ‘the life He left behind’.
You cannot be troubled more than I was then. I was one of the seven who besought J.N.D. to continue breaking bread, for he purposed to sit aside.
The Lord relieve your spirit and comfort you abundantly as He surely can.