It is not addressed to any particular class, and is intended for all who are interested in the teachings of the Gospel. But "the gospel of the glory of the blessed God" is something infinitely higher still.
THE CROSS
The great burnt offering aspect of the cross should always be first and never be forgotten.fc4. In the wildest fables of false religion, there is nothing more utterly incredible than the story of the life and death of the Son of God.
FAITH
As far as the act of faith is concerned, the gospel is believed as much as the fleeting news of the passing hour. Faith is an open lattice that lets heavenly light into the soul and brings with it joy and blessing.
REPENTANCE AND THE SPIRIT’S WORK
The conversion of the gospel is found in the Nicodemus sermon and in the gracious testimony to the woman at the well. To the Gentiles God granted repentance unto life,” we read in the Acts of the Apostles.
ELECTION
But there is another prayer, to which the solemn testimony must suffice to put to rest every doubt which the perverse use of the doctrine of election has cast upon the truth of grace. There was a covenant, no doubt, but which served only to make the condemnation of the world more certain. It is impossible that choice can ever limit the value of Christ's death, or the power of that mighty name to save and bless.
But God directs us to the cross with a very different object; and the power of the gospel is to know what it is about Him.
SUBSTITUTION
There was no laying of hands on the victim's head, as in the sin offering. Thus we learn the various aspects of Christ's death and the divine order of truth in connection with it. Here, then, is the key to the problems mentioned in the opening paragraphs of the chapter.
But to speak of the death of Christ having this substitutionary relationship with the sinner,.
RIGHTEOUSNESS
Love of God and man, wrought in life, is the fulfillment of the law; it is, moreover, the attainment of the perfection of creation. But the story of Adam's race is God's answer to every such claim. But God has done just this, and the great wonder of the gospel is how He could do it.
But the great miracle of the gospel, the great triumph of redemption, is that God can justify those who.
SANCTIFICATION
The priesthood was part of the covenant, and this was not an ordinance of the covenant at all. The covenant is inseparable from redemption, and it is by the blood of the covenant that the believer is sanctified. I allude, of course, to the sacrifice of the red heifer, as commanded in the nineteenth chapter of Numbers.
This was the foundation of the covenant, and as I said before, the priesthood is about the covenant.
RECONCILIATION
And it is an exhortation, moreover, that no one is more necessary to those who have the faith of the reformation. And this is the fifth free gift of the Romans.fj5 It is not justice, it is not life; even though it is for righteousness and gives life to the sinner who accepts it. It is not that sin should go unpunished, nor can hell be too terrible a punishment for sinners guilty of Christ's blood.
The whole creation groans,” but it must one day be freed from this bondage to the glorious freedom of the sons of God.
JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH
But the gospel itself brings life to the dead soul, and overcomes the enmity of the carnal heart. For, as I said, the gospel is for those who are incapable of such study; and, moreover, the distinction is based on the assumption that, of the various "kinds of faith" (to use a popular expression), one is efficacious, and the other is not;. The distinction assumes that the form of words translated in the Authorized Version "to believe in" (or on) implies trust in the person who is the object of the belief.
It is not due to any virtue or charm in the text of the received message, nor does it depend on any merit or vitality in faith, in whatever sense faith is understood.
JUSTIFICATION BY WORKS
That is, Abraham believed, and God blessed him: "He was accounted righteous by faith." Well, the result was that Abraham acted. He was justified by works when he was judged by his fellows; for man can only read life. And as faith is perfected or fulfilled by works, so the Scripture which says, "He was justified by faith," is perfected or fulfilled by the declaration, "He was justified by works."
So while in one sense a man is justified by faith without works, in another sense we see “how a man is justified by works, and not by faith alone.” Justified by faith before God; justified by working for people.
JUSTIFICATION BY BLOOD
I answer that it depends on the fact that God imputed the sin of the believer to Christ, and that he died under sin and for sin. Moreover, while the revelation of Christ's death as the sin-bearer is indeed a great mystery, it is by no means as incredible as the story of His death apart from sin. The eighteenth and nineteenth verses of the fifth letter to the Romans are sometimes quoted in support of the doctrine of indirect obedience, but incorrectly.
Christ was obedient unto death, and by means of that obedience we are justified - "justified by His blood," as the apostle already asserted in the 9th verse, and explained in the earlier chapters of the Epistle.fl2.
HOLINESS AND SANCTIFICATION
God is the Author, the Spirit the Worker, and the blood the means of our sanctification, and it is in Christ that all this is ours. It is very remarkable that when sanctification is spoken of as by the Spirit, it is connected with election and precedes faith. It is further remarkable that, except as noted above, sanctification is never spoken of as a special work of the Spirit.
Only through the help of the Holy Spirit can a believer stand for a moment.
CLEANSED BY BLOOD
But just as the question of his guest would turn the thoughts of the Israelites to his great day of atonement, and call to his lips the words, "It is the cleansing blood which alone enables us to live for Jehovah," so the Christian turns. to the great sin offering, and his faith finds expression in the words: "The blood of Jesus Christ, his Son, cleanses us from all sin." But how to "cleanse"? fn2 Just as the blood of the sin offering cleansed the Israelites. But to confuse the cleansing by blood - the sixteenth of the Leviticus aspect of the sin offering, with the cleansing by water - the nineteenth of the Leviticus aspect - betrays ignorance of Scripture.
It was only because of the place he had through the blood of the lamb that the Israelite could make use of the ashes of the red heifer.
THE PRIESTHOOD OF CHRIST
For the believer the law knows no punishments and the glory of the mercy seat no terrors. Atonement for the sinner who believes is a result of Christ's death: atonement for the believer who sins depends on His priesthood. The act was typical of Christ's work, but not of His high priestly work.
Both these were in the highest sense typical of the work of Christ; but mark the difference in Aaron's position with respect to them.
ATONEMENT
The blood worn through the veil was not the completion of the sin offering, but the memorial of a completed sin offering. The life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar, to make an atonement for your souls.” But the teaching of Hebrews is clear and unequivocal that the blood of the Covenant represented death (<580911>. Hebrews 9:11-20).
The life of the flesh is in the blood,” that is, in “the warm and living blood” that animates it.
THE GODHOOD OF GOD
And if God was the God of Israel, there were mutual obligations involved in the relationship. They beat me with sticks three times; once they stoned me; I have been shipwrecked three times; one night and one day I was in the deep. Happiness: not the strange joy of a careless heart (for, even in the world, such happiness is contemptible—the unenviable monopoly of fools—how utterly unworthy it is of those who are called to fellowship with the sufferings of Christ!) but happiness in the truest and deepest sense, in which Scripture alone speaks of it. pg3 The highest type of existence is not the butterfly, but the "Man of Sorrows"—He with the tarnished countenance and the melted heart .
Safe in Jehovah's keeping, safe in the hour of temptation, safe in the midst of dangers, kept by the Almighty power.
APPENDICES
The mere fact of miracles is no proof of divine intervention. A miracle is such an interference with the course of nature as is beyond our own
If this be so, we shall expect to find that it was to Jews that the testimony was based on miracles, and that when the kingdom gospel, or
It was not that miracles were performed, but that the miracles of the ministry were exactly what Isaiah prophesied the Messiah would accomplish. That the sacrifice of the Gentiles may be acceptable, sanctified by the Holy Spirit. The epitome of the universal Fatherhood of God is one of the most popular heresies.
For we are not the children of Adam as he came from the hand of God, but the remote descendants of the sinful and fallen outcasts of Eden.
FOOTNOTES
But in the ritual of the Day of Atonement there was no such identification with the goat "upon whom God's lot fell." The ceremony was all about Godward. The perfection of Christ's work does not in any way depend on the benefits derived from it to the sinner. It is not merely the kingdoms of this world that have been surrendered to Christ, but the throne of God's universe.
The "It is finished" of the cross must still vibrate until it is lost in the "It is done" of the throne.