Romans 5:11

“We also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement.”

— Romans 5:11

Not a single perfection of God can a believing mind view in Christ, but it smiles upon him. Oh! to see holiness and justice, truth and love, bending their glance of sweetest and softest benignity upon a poor trembling soul, approaching to hide itself beneath the shadow of the cross! What a truth is this! All is sunshine here. The clouds are scattered, the darkness is gone, the tempest is hushed, the sea is a calm. Justice has lost its sting, the law its terror, and sin its power: the heart of God is open, the bosom of Jesus bleeds, the Holy Spirit draws, the Gospel invites, and now the weary and the heavy-laden may draw near to a reconciled God in Christ. Oh, were ever words sweeter than these, "God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them." "Whom God has set forth to be a propitiation through faith in His blood." "He is able to save to the uttermost those who come unto God by him"?

God in Christ is the covenant God of His people. He is their God; their tender, loving, condescending Father. They may lose for a while the sight and the enjoyment of this truth, but this contravenes it not; it still remains the same, unchangeable, precious, and glorious. Nothing can rob them of it. In the tempest let it be the anchorage of your faith; in darkness the pole-star of your hope. Let every circumstance—the prosperity that ensnares, and the adversity that depresses, the temptation that assails, and the slight that wounds—endear to your believing soul this precious thought—"God reconciled, God at peace, God a Father in Christ, is my God forever and ever, and He will be my guide even unto death." If to view God in Christ is a comforting truth, it is also a most sanctifying truth. Why has God revealed Himself in Jesus? To evince the exceeding hatefulness of sin, and to show that nothing short of such a stupendous sacrifice could remove it, consistently with the glory of the Divine nature and the honor of the Divine government. Each sin, then, is a blow struck at this transcendent truth. The eye averted from it, sin appears a trifle; it can be looked at without indignation, tampered with without fear, committed without hesitation, persisted in without remorse, confessed without sorrow. But when Divine justice is seen, drinking the very heart's blood of God's only Son in order to quench its infinite thirst for satisfaction—when God in Christ is seen in His humiliation, suffering, and death—all with the design of pardoning iniquity, transgression, and sin, how fearful a thing does it seem to sin against this holy Lord God! How base, how ungrateful appears the act, in view of love so amazing, of grace so rich, and of glory so great! Cultivate a constant, an ardent thirst for holiness. Do not be discouraged, if the more intensely the desire for sanctification rises, the deeper and darker the revelation of the heart's hidden evil. The one is often a consequent of the other; but persevere. The struggle may be painful, the battle may be strong, but the result is certain, and will be a glorious victory—VICTORY, through the blood of the Lamb!