This is a grand, cardinal point for the anxious reader to seize. It cannot fail to emancipate the heart and tranquilize the conscience. We cannot possibly behold, by faith, the Man who was nailed to the tree, now crowned on the throne, and not have peace with God. The Lord Jesus Christ having taken upon Himself our sins, and the judgment due to them, He could not be where He now is if a single one of those sins remained unatoned for. To see the Sin-bearer crowned with glory is to see our sins gone forever from the divine presence. Where are our sins? They are all obliterated. How do we know this? The One who took them all upon Himself has passed through the heavens to the very highest pinnacle of glory. Eternal justice has wreathed His blessed brow with a diadem of glory, as the Accomplisher of our redemption—the Bearer of our sins; thus proving, beyond all question, or possibility of a question, that our sins are all put away out of God's sight forever. A crowned Christ and a clear conscience are, in the blessed economy of grace, inseparably linked together. Wondrous fact! Well may we chant, with all our ransomed powers, the praises of redeeming love.
But let us see how this most consolatory truth is set forth in holy Scripture. In Romans iii. we read, "But now the righteousness of God without law [χωρὶς νόμου] is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets; even the righteousness of God by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe; for there is no difference: for all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: whom God hath set forth a propitiation through faith in His blood, to declare His righteousness for the remission [or passing over] of sins that are past [in time gone by], through the forbearance of God; to declare at this time His righteousness; that He might be just and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus."
Again, in chapter iv, speaking of Abraham's faith being counted to him for righteousness, the apostle adds, "Now it was not written for his sake alone, that it was imputed to him; but for us also, to whom it shall be imputed, if we believe on Him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead; who was delivered for our offenses, and raised again for our justification." Here we have God introduced to our souls as the One who raised from the dead the Bearer of our sins. Why did He do so? Because the One who had been delivered for our offenses had perfectly glorified Him respecting those offenses, and put them away forever. God not only sent His only begotten Son into the world, but He bruised Him for our iniquities, and raised Him from the dead, in order that we might know and believe that our iniquities are all disposed of in such a manner as to glorify Him infinitely and everlastingly. Eternal and universal homage to His name!
But we have further testimony on this grand fundamental truth. In Hebrews i. we read such soul-stirring words as these: "God, who at sundry times and in divers manners [or in divers measures and modes] spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by [His] Son, whom He hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also He made the worlds; who being the brightness of His glory, and the express image of His Person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high." Our Lord Christ, blessed be His name! would not take His seat on the throne of God until He had, by the offering of Himself on the cross, purged our sins. Hence, a risen Christ at God's right hand is the glorious and unanswerable proof that our sins are all gone, for He could not be where He now is if a single one of those sins remained. God raised from the dead the self-same Man on whom He Himself had laid the full weight of our sins. Thus all is settled—divinely, eternally settled. It is as impossible that a single sin can be found on the very weakest believer in Jesus as on Jesus Himself. This is a wonderful thing to be able to say, but it is the solid truth of God, established in manifold places in holy Scripture, and the soul that believes it must possess a peace which the world can neither give nor take away.
PART II
Thus far, we have been occupied with that aspect of the work of Christ which bears upon the question of the forgiveness of sins, and we earnestly trust that the reader is thoroughly clear and settled on this grand point. It is assuredly his happy privilege so to be, if only he will take God at His word. "Christ hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God."
If, then, Christ hath suffered for our sins, should we not know the deep blessedness of being eternally delivered from the burden of those sins? Can it be according to the mind and heart of God that one for whom Christ suffered should remain in perpetual bondage, tied and bound with the chain of his sins, and crying out, from week to week, month to month, and year to year, that the burden of his sins is intolerable?
If such utterances are true and proper for the Christian, then what has Christ done for us? Can it be true that Christ has put away our sins and yet that we are tied and bound with the chain of them? Is it true that He bore the heavy burden of our sins and yet that we are still crushed beneath the intolerable weight thereof?
Some would fain persuade us that it is not possible to know that our sins are forgiven—that we must go on to the end of our life in a state of complete uncertainty on this most vital and important question. If this be so, what has become of the precious gospel of the grace of God—the glad tidings of salvation? In the view of such miserable teaching as this, what mean those glowing words of the blessed apostle Paul in the synagogue of Antioch?—"Be it known unto you therefore, men and brethren, that through this Man [Jesus Christ, dead and risen] is preached [not promised as a future thing, but proclaimed now] the forgiveness of sins; and by Him all who believe are [not shall be, or hope to be] justified from all things, from which ye could not be justified by the law of Moses." (Acts xiii. 38, 39.)