Continuing after Resurrection Sunday to reflect on the cross and what was accomplished, I was reading J.I. Packer, “In My Place Condemned He Stood” and came across these 9 truths that faith in Christ as my substitute yields.
Galatians 2:20, “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.”
1. God condones nothing but judges all sin as it deserves as Scripture affirms and my conscience confirms to be right.
2. My sins merit ultimate suffering and rejection from God’s presence and nothing I do can blot them out.
3. The penalty due to me for my sins, whatever it was, was paid for me by Jesus Christ, the Son of God, in his death on the cross.
4. Because this is so, I through faith in Him am made “the righteousness of God in Him,” i.e., I am justified; pardoned, acceptance, and sonship to God become mine.
5. Christ’s death for me is my sole ground of hope before God. “If he fulfilled not justice, I must; if he underwent not wrath, I must to eternity.” (John Owen)
6. My faith in Christ is God’s own gift to me, given in virtue of Christ’s death for me: i.e., the cross procured it.
7. Christ’s death for me guarantees my preservation to glory.
8. Christ’s death for me is the measure and pledge of the love of the Father and the Son to me.
9. Christ’s death for me calls and constrains me to trust, to worship, to love, and to serve.
Only where these nine truths have taken root and grow in the heart will anyone be fully alive to God.
The church is and will always be at its healthiest when every Christian can line up with every other Christian to sing P. P. Bliss’s simple words,
Galatians 2:20, “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.”
1. God condones nothing but judges all sin as it deserves as Scripture affirms and my conscience confirms to be right.
2. My sins merit ultimate suffering and rejection from God’s presence and nothing I do can blot them out.
3. The penalty due to me for my sins, whatever it was, was paid for me by Jesus Christ, the Son of God, in his death on the cross.
4. Because this is so, I through faith in Him am made “the righteousness of God in Him,” i.e., I am justified; pardoned, acceptance, and sonship to God become mine.
5. Christ’s death for me is my sole ground of hope before God. “If he fulfilled not justice, I must; if he underwent not wrath, I must to eternity.” (John Owen)
6. My faith in Christ is God’s own gift to me, given in virtue of Christ’s death for me: i.e., the cross procured it.
7. Christ’s death for me guarantees my preservation to glory.
8. Christ’s death for me is the measure and pledge of the love of the Father and the Son to me.
9. Christ’s death for me calls and constrains me to trust, to worship, to love, and to serve.
Only where these nine truths have taken root and grow in the heart will anyone be fully alive to God.
The church is and will always be at its healthiest when every Christian can line up with every other Christian to sing P. P. Bliss’s simple words,
Bearing shame and scoffing rude
In my place condemned He stood
Sealed my pardon with His blood
Hallelujah! What a Saviour
Sealed my pardon with His blood
Hallelujah! What a Saviour
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