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Christ A Propitiation
A Sermon on Rom. 3:25
By Charles L. Church

I. The Context.

The unique revelation of the gospel in Paul's epistle to the Romans is generally acknowledged by all. However, the reasons for its uniqueness seem rarely to be recognized. Paul had never been to Rome, as he had been to Corinth, Ephesus, Philippi, Colosse, etc. He had never once preached to them in person. It seems beyond controversy that the first thing which Paul would have preached to any people as he went about to establish churches, would have been the revelation of the gospel hope in Christ. (ICor.2:2) Most places where Paul planted churches he was allowed to continue for some time, establishing the infant churches with such preaching. It seems evident, then, that by the time that Paul wrote to such churches, though he may have had many particulars of such understanding to perfect, yet it would have been needless, because redundant, to there give them any complete or systematic revelation of the gospel. And this is just what we find in his epistles. In the epistles written to those churches which Paul had been in person, we find many particulars of gospel understanding and practice treated with, but no systematic treatment of the gospel revelation is to be found. On the contrary, the epistle to the Romans, the only of Paul's epistles written to a church not founded by himself, nor yet visited by him at the time of its writing, here we find the thorough and systematic revelation of the gospel mystery, which such circumstances would lead us to expect. It is, in my opinion, a fuller expression of the gospel than is to be found elsewhere in the whole scripture.

There are three conclusions which such considerations lead us to entertain. First, it leads us to the admiration of the mercy and wisdom of providence in preventing Paul from going to Rome, that succeeding generations of the church might be bequeathed one such systematic revelation of the gospel within the canon of scripture. (Rom.1:13) Secondly, Paul's immediate founding of all the churches upon the foundational points of the gospel such as we see in Romans, (total depravity, justification by faith, sanctification by the Spirit, Sovereign unconditional election, etc.) demonstrates Paul's high regard for sound gospel doctrine, in contrast to those who think that a unity on such subjects is an immaterial shibboleth of formalists. Lastly, such considerations lead us to the conclusion that the book of Romans stands preeminent among others, as a revelation of the gospel. While "all scripture is given by inspiration of God", (IITim.3:16), yet it is certainly not inappropriate to ascribe to any book its natural status among the others. Leviticus, for instance, is a gospel revelation, but it is a gospel revelation only in types and shadows, and as such we are under no obligation to confer upon it some sort of equality with a book such as Romans as a revelation of the gospel, merely for the sake of its equal authority as scripture. We have no other book of scripture which dedicates its first twelve chapters to a systematic revelation of the gospel, its mysteries, and its obligations. In this respect, the book or Romans stands quite alone. The method of Paul's founding churches, before described, is the reason why the gospel he wrote to the Romans is such a perfect and methodical revelation of the whole will of God as it respects the salvation of Christ, and why it should be esteemed as such by believers.

The consideration which has induced me to commence with this introduction to a sermon on Rom.3:25, is that, because the book of Romans is the systematic revelation that it is, it is more than usually necessary to spend some time developing the important teachings upon which our text is founded, lest we wholly misunderstand, or at least underestimate, its meaning. As in any systematic teaching, each part is founded upon antecedent teachings, and therefore it is wholly necessary to review these foundations, before the superstructure is admired. This is especially necessary in a day such as ours, where error utterly reigns, and hence gospel soundness must be more carefully applied.

Let us, then, ask, Where does Paul begin his gospel in this preeminent and systematic revelation of it? I ask this question because it is right here at the very beginning that the modern man goes astray in his modern gospel of sentimentalism. Paul, after making his customary salutations and greetings, (withal excusing his absence from them hitherto), comes right to the point at hand in the gospel of God: God's wrath is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men. That is his beginning. First, then, let us examine how the wrath of God is revealed from heaven in the gospel, and then examine what sort of gospel you will have if you start at any other point.

It will, perhaps, appear as strange to many that the gospel, the good news of God's mercy to men in Jesus Christ, should be also a revelation of God's wrath against man. That it consists of such a revelation, let the following particulars attest. Let us ask the question, What would serve to more glorify God's justice? For the severity of God's inflexible justice to consign each and every man to the unsearchable miseries of hell? Or for a Surety to stand in their place of judgment, and bear the due unto their sin? Not just any surety, but the immediate and sinless Son of God?

To better answer that question, let us first develop the idea of a Surety. The scriptures teach us that Christ was "made the surety of a better testament". (Heb.7:22) For a natual parallel to the work of Christ in being surety for the sins of God's elect, let us use the example of a man becoming surety for a monetary loan. Suppose, then, that I take a home loan, and ask my friend, John, to be surety for my loan. John agrees, and I default on the loan. At this point the whole legal responsibility of the debt falls upon John. Any remedy for John is between him and me, and for that there is no binding legal recourse, but only what personal obligations may secure. He was surety, and the debt is his; and not only so, the house is mine. He will not be released from the debt until every last penny is exacted.

Now consider the condition into which this similitude is insinuated. The debtor is the sinner, owing to God a debt of wrath and damnation, infinitely beyond his means to pay. Jesus Christ is the Surety, who made himself the surety of His people by formally owning all the guilt and sin of his people in the economy of God's justice. Now the debt which God's people had incurred was one of guilt and damnation, and thus Jesus, as surety, by His substitutionary death retires this debt of guilt and damnation which the sins of God's elect had incurred. Now no surety is released from the obligation for which he has formally bound himself, until that debt is fully and incontestably satisfied. Now we've said that Jesus had obliged himself as surety to answer for the sins of God's people, who had incurred a miserable weight of wrath and damnation due unto their persons on account of their wicked works. We've said that Jesus, as surety cannot be released from this obligation until every last mite of atoning blood is wrung from Him to fully satisfy that account. And thus we know not of His satisfaction until we see Him released from the debt we had incurred. But the debt we had incurred demanded that we be bound by death to judgment. Therefore we have no knowledge or hope of redemption until Christ is released from our condemnation in which He stood. But here it is: The Surety of men rose again from the grave, thus shaking the very foundations of Hell, and proclaiming to a world of lost men a reconciled judge to any such as put their trust in Him. A surety is not released until the obligations for which he undertook are fully satisfied, and the resurrection thus tells us that there is a people whose sins have been finally answered for in God's own testimony of releasing Jesus Christ from the hold of death. Thus to "believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead", (Rom.10:10), is to believe in a satisfied God. "And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins." (ICor.15:17) But "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead." "Who was delivered for our offenses, and was raised again for our justification." (IPet.1:3, Rom.4:25)

And just as the earthly surety has no recourse against the defaulting debtor, because he has formally bound Himself to answer for all, so the spiritual surety has bound himself to answer for all, such that those for whom He atoned "Shall not come into condemnation, but are passed from death unto life". (Jn.5:24, Gal.3:13) Either the carnal or the spiritual surety has recourse for any remedy such as domestic government, or personal sentiment between them may secure, but all threat of answering for that debt before the law is clean gone.

In Gethsemene Jesus prayed to God, "Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me." Never did Jesus flinch from His purpose to redeem His people. Jesus is praying to His Father, Father, if it be possible to redeem My chosen any other way than this that is now coming upon me, let that be, instead of this. Ah, hear Him cry! "Anything, Oh, my God, but to suffer Thy frown; to wear Thy curse; alas! to be abhorred as a vile and accursed criminal as I stand in the stead of Thy sinful people". Will God find a way? Is it "possible"? The answer is an absolute negative. Cursed must be even the Holy inhabitant of the very throne of God, the Son of God Himself, Jesus Christ, at Whom angels cry, "Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God of Hosts", (Is.6:1-5, Jn.12), so strict is God's justice, so profound His indignation and unquenchable hatred against sin. The fact that it was not "possible", that not even the bloody prayers of the dearest treasure of God's heart could make it so, serves as an infinitely greater revelation of God's wrath against sin than if all men and angels were made the perpetual and everlasting objects of God's unquenchable wrath. Only the gospel could reveal this superlative degree of God's wrath against sin. The law with all its terrors and thunderings, is trifling compared to this stunning exhibition of God's inflexible hatred of sin.

Thus Paul the apostle, the most preeminent in usefulness of all the apostles, makes this the first teaching of his gospel. The gospel of Jesus Christ is the most preeminent revelation in the scriptures of "the wrath of God against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men". This is the beginning of the gospel.

Ye who think of sin but lightly Nor suppose the evil great Here may view its nature rightly, Here its guilt may estimate. See the sacrifice appointed, See who bears the awful load; Tis the Christ, the Lord's anointed Son of man, and Son of God.

Let us next examine the fruits of not making this the beginning of our gospel. If we are to start anywhere else but here at the wrath of God against sin, then we must of necessity represent Jesus Christ as a saviour from something else other than from the wrath of God, which, in the fullest and most conscientious sense, is preaching "another Jesus" and "another gospel". (Gal.1:6-9, IICor.11:3-4) This other "gospel" glories to make Jesus out as the "saviour" of all of a man's temporal woes and troubles. While it is certainly true that to the redeemed man Jesus is a strong deliverer from all evils, either by delivering from calamity, or by putting a spirit of victory over it in the believer, such that he glories in infirmities; while it is true that we are encouraged in the scriptures to entirely trust in God for our temporal cares, all of these precious truths notwithstanding, it is utterly and perfectly immaterial as it respects the gospel, or the experience of one truly being called to partake of its goodness. The man wrought upon by the Holy Spirit of God is not burdened with his want of financial success; his want of a wife or family; his need for emotional fulfillment; in short, his need for a better perishing inheritance. There is one thing, and only one thing that burdens this man's heart, and that is guilt and sin, and indeed these other matters are utterly trifling in comparison to this great concern. Such concerns are irrelevant as it respects the lost man coming to the gospel. Jesus Christ could very well have provided for a man's temporal inheritance without dying on the cross. But He came to "seek and to save that which was lost", and therefore He must stand in the stead of the ungodly and drink the dregs of that holy wrath allotted to them. This wonderful mercy is the glory of the gospel, and of the Christian religion, and they utterly mar and debase this glory who come to the lost and guilty man only to tell him of a gospel that can save for him this perishing crown and glory of the world, only because his unregenerate dispostion will not credit a gospel that cannot secure him all the things upon which his unbelieving heart is fixed. Thus the very thing which the gospel proposes to cure in men, this new "gospel" proposes to save for man. And thus the glory of God in the gospel is handily sacrificed for the sake of sating the blinded aspirations of man.

This condition of making Jesus out to be the "saviour" from our temporal troubles is manifest in many ways. It is in the preaching, in the music, and in the writings of the modern church. I remember hearing a song once that may serve as an example. A man was singing about how he loved Jesus so very much. But what for? For His bloody passion? For His leaving the ivory palaces of heaven to come and live in poverty and to here own the wretched cursing of men on the cross? For rising in victory over our condemnation in His resurrection? For sitting a high Priest forever in Heaven to "save to the uttermost those who come unto God by him"? No, none such things. The song went something like as follows, "All I ever wanted was someone that cared about me. That knew my needs, could heal my hurting; and deliver me from the pain....... etc. etc. etc.." Then, of course, Jesus was the one who came to do all that nice stuff for this whimpering Narcissus. Another case in point was a song whose main line was "God's not through with me yet", singing it in such a glib, frivolous and jovial style that one gets the impression that the sin yet to be purged from our breast was some sort of meaningless bauble, when it was the thorns on the brow, the scourge on the back, the spikes in the hands, the spear in the side, of the second person of the blessed Trinity. Do you know how they used to sing "God's not through with me yet"? Like this: "What Thou, my Lord, hast suffered was all for sinners gain; Mine, mine was the transgression, but Thine the deadly pain; O here I fall my Saviour; tis I deserve Thy place; Look on me with Thy favour; vouchsafe to me Thy grace." But now it's "God's not through with me yet"; that is, "yeah, I have sin, but don't make such a big deal about it; God's not through with me yet." Thus the modern attitude toward sin, begotten by nothing else than by this modern attitude toward the gospel, which promises man the world, rather than deliverance from it.

The problem is, God's not started with such persons yet. Salvation begins when a man is stricken for his sins, and feels them a great, an intolerable offense and burden. Until then he seeks no remedy. He may seek a remedy for his marriage, his car payments, his overdrawn bank account, etc.; but until he feels anxiety and perplexity over his sins, he will no more seek gospel salvation, than a man in perfect health will check into the hospital. We tend to look at the grosser displays of this reign of unbelief in such men as the prosperity teachers, who make Jesus out to be but the minister of temporal comfort. "If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable." (ICor.15:19) But the care of this world is the only hope these men ever speak of. They know nothing of victory over death, because they suppose that a healthy corpse in a passing world is that victory, rather than our future resurrection through faith in a risen Saviour. But most do just as these. The plague is nearly universal. You can hardly find the gospel preached but that Jesus is made out to be little more than a pampering psychologist who has extraordinary power to help you with all your whimpering emotional troubles, and to fulfil your grandest desire in this world: To save this life.

Examples of this fly on every radio wave across the land. In fact, you can hardly find anyone to preach the gospel otherwise than to present Jesus as saving you from some calamity besides that of sin and damnation, and if you do, it is nearly never attributed to a substitutionary blood atonement. How many times have we heard it? This "Jesus" is the "Saviour" of your marriage, your poor self-esteem, your failing success in the business world, your family life, your inability to find a wife, your general dissatisfaction with life, etc.. He came to "heal your hurting; to satisfy your longing desire; to take away the pain, and to give you meaning in life." He evidently came to do just about anything a fallen heart could desire, except to own the cursing of sinners and rise from the dead; to change wicked hearts, and deliver from the power of Satan, and this present evil world. But then again; fallen hearts don't desire such things, and thus are all the jewels of salvation conspicuously absent from this "gospel". In short, because the unbelieving lost sinner has no interest in the life to come or in spiritual things, the spiritual demagogue is prepared to make a "Jesus" for him who is a saviour of this life, because that is all the lost man is concerned to save. If the spiritual demagogue cannot thus "save" such a one with such a "Jesus", he cannot harness him to grind in his church as the slave of his "success", and that has become the grand object of "evangelism" and "church growth". Let us evaluate this practice by the scriptures.

In I Corinthians chapters one and two, we find that the attempt to win people over to the gospel with "wisdom of words" is but to seek to establish their faith in the wisdom of men, and not in the power of God. But what does it mean to thus "preach the gospel with wisdom of words"? The dilemma which Paul manifests is that he preached Christ, "To the Jews a stumbling block, and to the Greeks foolishness". "Well, then;" says the modern pulpiteer, "we must make Christ to be wisdom to the Greeks, and power to the Jews. We must so preach Christ so that he will be credited by the faithless dispositions of unregenerate Adam, and then our gospel will have credit with him, such that he will be won to (another) Jesus; for as it is, our gospel has only the reproach of the cross". That is what it is to "preach the gospel with wisdom of words", making "the cross of Christ of none effect". It attempts to win people with human artifice, and thus to establish their faith, not in the power of God, but in the wisdom of men. Paul thus taught that this humanist gospel is to attempt to tailor your gospel so as it may be credited by the unbelieving dispositions of fallen men, rather than trusting in God to change those dispositions in those whom He calls, so as they will approve and embrace the gospel in its divine original, (so repugnant to the unrenewed man), and so glorify the power of God in reclaiming the evil, rather than the policy of men in flattering them into a religious delusion. He taught that in the preaching of the cross, the power of God changes those whom He calls such that they justify its wisdom; but our modern "mountebank in divinity" is for giving all men, called or uncalled, a "Jesus" full agreeable to their blindness, and therein both frustrates the salvation and gathering of those called of grace, and gathers abundantly such as will never be. Thus is frustrated the entire wisdom, purpose, and mission of the church of Jesus Christ. "Wisdom is justified of her children" and of them only, and so since we have no power to make men "the children of wisdom", we can always attempt to pervert wisdom, such that other children will like it well enough. (Lk.7:35) "The Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom: But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling block, and unto the Greeks foolishness; But unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God." That is, that though the Jews and Greeks required that which the gospel could never give them, it is the power of the gospel, not to pander to their blindness, but to flaunt this "weakness" of preaching a crucified Christ which, in their natural persons, they could never approve, for only thus is man's "wisdom" justly embarrassed, and only thus is demonstrated the power of the gospel of the cross to change these vain dispositions of men by which they are blinded to truth and salvation. The power of the gospel is not to glut, but to change these unbelieving dispositions. The power of the gospel is to reign over men, not to be reigned over by them. For though Christ crucified is thus yet preached to the Jews a stumblingblock, and to the Greeks foolishness", yet "to them that are called" is His salvation seen to be "The power of God, and the wisdom of God." To them who are called; to those to whom God reveals Himself in the preaching of the cross; these will receive the gospel as the power and wisdom of God, while to those uncalled of God's merciful purpose it will ever appear as but weak and foolish. Thus Paul concludes, "Of Him are ye in Christ Jesus, Who of God is made unto us wisdom", (v.30), that is, that only God can make a crucified Christ appear to be wisdom unto men, and the modern pulpiteer may only attempt to make gospel truth palatable to the unregenerate man by debasing it down to his wicked dispositions, because they are powerless in themselves to change their hearts. Therefore, men are obliged to but preach the truth, and let God save whom He will. To do any thing less is to ruin men and the gospel both. But the "wisdom" of the modern man is to attempt to glut these dispositions, not change them, and to call this a "gospel". Yes, there are greater numbers in those who are not called of God's power, and these seek for them as though shepherds of God's flock. If salvation is the greatest miracle, then such magicians are the greatest frauds in seeking by their wily artifice thus to counterfeit the work of salvation, and so imposture the true shepherd. Perhaps this "lying sign and wonder" is the very one spoken of by Paul that should come in the last days. (IIThes.2:9)

"If our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost: In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them." (IICor.4:3-4) But these, not content with this sovereign providence, would not miss the opportunity of gathering these blinded hoards, and this, as this verse foretells, must be done with some gospel to which this hoard is not blinded by Satan. But that gospel to which Satan would not blind is Satan's gospel. This formula created the paganized "Christianity" of the papacy in the context of pagan Rome, and the whore looks no more chaste when fashioned by the tastes of modern materialism. How comfortably might they merge!

The modern church has forged a gospel which has every ingredient calculated to draw in millions to its net, for it preaches a Jesus who came to serve men in all their blinded aspirations, rather than a Nazarene Whom the world could not endure, and Who called men to follow Him and to suffer the like honour with Him. From thence is that gospel which we now hear on all hands. "Come to Jesus; he can heal your marriage". "Come to Jesus, he has 'inner healing'". "Come to Jesus, he can put your family back in order". "Come to Jesus, he can give you self esteem". "Come to Jesus, he can make you happy and satisfied with life". All that is to say: "Come to Jesus, he is of power to save this life." "They are of the world, therefore speak they of the world, and the world heareth them". (IJn.4:5) Here is the secret of their "success". Yes, they have got the world to hear them. But they hear them only because they preach the world. This "Jesus" is "another Jesus", (IICor.11), and the preachers of him heirs of all the curses pronounced against such. It cannot be error to concur with Paul, "Let them be accursed". (Gal.1:7)

There is a book entitled, "Life-Style Evangelism", written by Joe Aldrich. In this book, among many dozens of other gross and infamous errors, is the teaching that we must not approach sinners with the truth of their wickedness or sin; no, no; then we have become "bad news". We must wisely perceive their "Felt needs", that is, needs they feel are important to them, and then make "Jesus" the saviour of these. Why, then they come to Jesus! Yes, indeed. They will have come to the idol named Jesus hewn out by every religious hypocrite that has ever been, of power to "save this life", and to deliver men from the power of gospel truth, experience, and obligation. Thus calling the righteous to repentance is the sum of the gospel of the modern man. They outnumber sinners ten to one. This miraculous "salvation" could not be at a more stark contrast to the scriptures, and especially such as we have just reviewed. The very first sermon of any apostle after Pentecost was that given by Peter to the Jews. Would not this sermon serve as a valid experiment with which to try this theory of the "felt need"? Perhaps Peter should tell the Jews of how Jesus could provide for their emotional needs, make them successful, or heal their sicknesses. And what greater "felt need" of the Jews at this time, than to feel that they were justified in crucifying the Lord? Doubtless many of them were tormented with anxiety as to whether they had done the right thing, and strongly felt that they should like to be convinced that they had done so. They needed self esteem also, so that Peter should certainly wish to tell them that it was not only a just, but a good deed that they could feel proud of. But what says Peter? His sermon is actually quite singular in hammering his audience with the guilt of the blood of the Son of God, closing his sermon with these words: "Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly, that God hath made that same Jesus, whom ye crucified, both Lord and Christ." No altar call. No offer of mercy. No "God can meet your needs". Nothing. Only this: "Let all the house of Israel know assuredly, that God hath made that same Jesus, whom ye crucified, both Lord and Christ." These are the last words of Peter's sermon. That is like telling Archbishop Laud that the Roundheads just won the English civil war. It means his head, and that is all it means. It is saying to the Jews, "The one Whom you have murdered has just been made ruler of Heaven and earth." It's kind of like saying, "God's not through with you yet" in a whole new way! It is the biblical model to preach to men that their sins are aggravated in the extreme, and that God's sword of justice hangs over their heads. Anything less is treasonous to God, and maliciously damning to men. It was neither the practice of Paul, the other apostles, nor of Jesus Christ Himself. (Acts26:20, Mat.28:20, Jn.4:16-26) It is but the expedient of the spiritual demagogue. Until the church will call men to repent of their "felt needs", rather than preaching a "Jesus" who is the minister of their fulfillment; that is, until the church will call men to repent of their "single eye" to "save this life", (Mat.16:25), then we shall never hear them cry out for the way of salvation, like as with Peter's sermon; "Men and brethren, what shall we do?"(Acts 2:37)

So we have seen that it is the beginning of the gospel to preach to men that they are condemned before a holy God. But why is it thus? Why this emphasis on the judgment due unto all men? The reason is that it is a mercy in itself for men to know of coming doom, that they might be sober and by grace sue for mercy. Whatever the modern method may be, Paul was not content to be calling the righteous to repentance. (Mat.9:13) Let us look at Paul's method, his immediate purpose, and his ultimate reason, for so proceeding in the revelation of his gospel.

Paul's method was to first disqualify all men as possessing any merit before God. We have seen he commences his gospel with a proclamation of wrath in the gospel of Christ. He then proceeds throughout chapter one to apply this to the Gentiles, showing that their blindness was the result, not the excuse, of their sin, and that they were condemned beyond all excuse in that they all universally enjoyed natural revelation, which, though it was thus powerful to condemn them, was of no power to save them. He next disqualifies the Jews, (chapters 2-3:20), showing them that though their privileges were real, they were not in themselves redemptive, and that the special revelation of God which they all enjoyed only justified the doers of it, not the hearers, and hence left them all in a condemned condition. In short, the Gentiles were condemned by general revelation, the Jews by special revelation, and thus were both disqualified for having any merit before God, and thus were both qualified for the grace of the gospel of Christ. "God ... concluded them all in unbelief, that he might have mercy upon all". (Rom.11:32) And this is Paul's immediate purpose in having proceeded thus. He states this quite bluntly in Rom.3:19: "That every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God." His purpose is but to show Jew and Gentile alike, that they are guilty and condemned before God, and without hope in themselves, whoever they be. And so his ultimate reason for his method is that it is inescapably necessary to thus shut men up to a plea of mercy; to bring down all their other hopes, and dash their native self confidence, until the mouth is stopped, or the gospel message of Jesus Christ is but a grand beating of the air. Paul wished thus only to qualify all men for the message that was to come in the latter half of chapter three and following, that that seed might, with grace, fall on a ground duly prepared for it. If he fails of this object, he fails of his ultimate object, to call God's elect out of darkness, and into God's marvelous light, for he waits upon the Spirit of God, Who will not call the righteous to repentance, whatever men may attempt. (Mat.9:13)

Thus Paul commends not himself to men, but to God. He does not attempt to slyly perceive the "needs" felt by the unregenerate heart, but proclaims the unfelt, but genuine, need of a new heart, without all respect as to whether that will appear as the wisdom and power of God, or a stumbling block and foolishness, to his hearers. It will be wisdom to those God calls, and because he intends no more than the gathering of such, that is enough. He is not "ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth", not priestcraft. (Rom.1:16) The modern preacher, in his "gospel" audition to human depravity, has destroyed the gospel, and those who hear it, and is but attempting to gather people around a party, thus forsaking his duty as an ambassador of God, who will deliver only the message of his Prince, "whether they will hear or whether they will forbear", (Eze.2:5-7), and rather takes up the calling of a ghostly demagogue, ever keen at discerning which way the people are running, that he may get himself two paces before them, calling behind, "follow me, I'm your leader". (IJn.4:5) Men must feel condemned, or they never will, indeed never can, embrace Jesus Christ with saving faith, because saving faith embraces Christ as a Saviour of a helpless, guilty, condemned, sinner. They may embrace an idol of their own making, come to save them from who knows what; but never can they know what it is to believe in Jesus until they have profoundly felt the sting of sin to have fatally poisoned every nerve and cell in their fallen heart.

Let us pause for reflection. Have you ever felt this sting? Have you ever felt that you were all badness? If no such thing passes in your soul; if no such thing has ever passed there; then you, frankly, have no reason whatever to come to Christ. You don't need Him. Until you see yourself as hopelessly condemned, it is certain that you yet entertain the hope of being good enough in yourself to be justified with God upon your own merits. But remember this; That God before Whom you suppose thus to stand did not flinch from sinking the fiercest arrows of almighty wrath into the breast of One Who was His dearest Son and treasure, if but one sin of His people were to be accounted as His. If you suppose that such justice justifies you, it would not be wholly irrational to contemplate redeeming another elect for God. With such spotless moral perfection, it is certainly quite possible. But anything less than this degree of perfection, and your soul is headed for certain and unutterable damnation on such terms. If God did not hesitate to unleash His wrath upon His dearest Son if He was to stand as surety for sinners, then what superior virtue is it that you thus see in yourself that you should possess this confidence that He will turn away from so dealing with you, the actual offender?

So have you ever felt this sting of sin? Have you ever felt that you were all badness in the root? I am not asking if you have ever felt that you have done wicked things, but if you have ever felt that you were wicked? Not, "I stole", but "I am a thief". This distinction is not intended as any entertaining hyperbole. There is no explicit depth of anguish being imposed as the rule by which all must be saved. It is the kind, not the degree of experience that is insisted upon. And has your heart ever experienced this kind of conviction? Have you ever seen your condition such that you saw your sin, not only as something which you did, as of past guilt, but as what you are, as of a present and incurable plague? Has your heart ever appeared to you to be all perversity and uncleanness, and full of nothing but pride, self, malignity, vain glory, conceit, revenge, envy, deceit, etc.? If not, then you ought to ask yourself, What did I come to Jesus Christ for? What did you feel that made you come to Him? What did you seek at His pierced hand? Was it a new marriage? Or was it a heavenly Spouse? Was it a better vocation? Or was it a new heart? Was it an improved family? Or was it the Spirit of adoption? What did you seek from Him? Have you been fairly poisoned with sin? That is, have you, by grace, been made to see that it is so? Do you feel the moral poison of Adam run in your veins? That is, are you, or have you been impressed by divine mercy that your very nature, your every cell, is potent with malignancy against God, truth, and goodness? Such a one thus impressed may suppose that they are now undone. But just the opposite is the truth. You are thus plowed only to receive the seed of the gospel, which will only bounce off of the hardened hearts of other hearers. You are ready for Romans 3:25.

II. The Text

"Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus."

We have come to the point of seeing the condemned state of man's heart in Romans chapter three. But then comes this word, "But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets". (Rom.3:21). This verse asserts a strange thing: righteousness without the works of the law. How can one have righteousness without the works of the law? What sort of righteousness is that? Though Paul spends some time answering that question in chapter four, calling forth witnesses from the law and the prophets to establish the truth of Christ's imputed righteousness, yet it seems that first he would show the object of that faith, which is Christ Jesus, commended to sinners as a propitiation, of power to fully satisfy the holiness of God toward the sinner. This condescending mercy to the ungodly is in such perfect accord with God's inflexible righteousness, that it serves in itself as an exalted declaration of it. It is then a declaration of righteous mercy, and of merciful righteousness. Thus is Christ set forth as a propitiation to declare God's righteousness in the redemption of men, and this declaration of righteous mercy is the only thing which can satisfy the conscience of, and so inspire saving faith in, a soul chained in the shackles of righteous condemnation and guilt.

Let us begin the consideration of these truths by considering the word "propitiation". Often it is that we read a verse of scripture, or a passage from an uninspired writer, and come across some word we do not understand, and are in too great of a hurry to take the time to investigate until we do. That is often a great robbery of ourselves, and it is particularly so if we have failed to understand the word in our text, "propitiation". A propitiation is something that satisfies an offended party. In the sense of our text, it is the thing that satisfies. For instance; If John were angry with Mark, and Mark gave John one thousand dollars, which placated John thoroughly, then the thousand dollars could rightly be called a propitiation. It is the thing itself which satisfied, in this case, the money. But in the gospel economy we see that the offended party is God, and we, those with whom He is offended. But who has provided the propitiation? The offended party! That in itself is a spectacle of condescension! Let us further investigate this idea.

Our text begins by saying of Christ, "Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation." We have spoken of the soul prepared for grace and mercy, by the knowledge of his plague. And what is the language of that soul in its desire for deliverance? It is this, "What warrant have I, treasonous and morally polluted as I am, to impose myself into the privileges of God's mercy?" It is the matter of warrant. Those genuinely desirous of mercy are ever cautious of presumption. They have been shown again and again that they have every reason to distrust themselves, and they do. But see our text concerning God's testimony of Christ. "Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation." Here is divine authority in the proclamation of the sinner's hope. Here we have God commending, as it were, the efficacy of Christ's satisfaction of His justice, thus declaring to all men a perfect remedy for their condemnation, right from His own mouth, as it were. If God has set Christ forth as this propitiation, every burdened sinner might well take hope. What better declaration or promise of hope might any disquieted and troubled soul desire from the God of justice? What better word could he think or wish, than that God had condescended to provide his propitiation for him, and had proclaimed His satisfaction in it, toward those who hope in it? I can think of no more encouraging words in all God's book than these. Nothing so perfectly answers the want of the thirsty soul. Here is the direct declaration of an apostle to whom the glorified Jesus Christ spoke face to face, telling us, not that any man or angel, but that the almighty God and Judge is proclaiming to the world a propitiation that He, in all His incomprehensible dignity and honor, will fully and freely accept. What does that mean? Well, what is a propitiation? A propitiation, remember, is that which satisfies the offended party. God setting forth Christ as a propitiation, then, consists of a publication to the world of condemned men, that He is fully satisfied with the work of Christ's substitutionary sacrifice in the place of the sinner, and will be freely reconciled to any who come to Him by it, and that this reconciliation is freely given to the ungodly in perfect harmony and agreement with the strictest severity of his inflexible justice. That is water to a thirsty land. A satisfied God is the news for which every burdened soul waits, and here in Christ is this very thing published to the ungodly, as a thing perfectly free and gratuitous, winning in the heart the conviction that if the majesty of heaven be satisfied with Christ's propitiation, the conscience of man may very well be equally satisfied, and come unto God by Him. Here, in this precious verse, God is telling the world of men; I am satisfied; I am propitiated, I am fully placated in the offering of Jesus Christ: Trust in Him, and I am satisfied for all that you have desired; "your sins and iniquities will I remember no more".

A prophesy of Isaiah teaches us this truth. "He shall see the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied". (Is.53:11) That is, that God shall see the travail of Christ's soul, and be satisfied toward the one who makes Christ his hope. Whether God looks from eternity past into the future, or from eternity future into the past, he will only "foresee" that "all are gone astray, and that there are none that seek after God". (Rom.3:11) When God looks at us, past, present, or future, all he will see is marring imperfection and transgression. But "He shall see the travail of His soul, and shall be satisfied." He shall see the travail of Jesus Christ, covered with the filthy impurity, the terrible blasphemy, the shameful hypocrisy and pride of His people, and pouring upon Him the terrible dregs of his infinite indignation, shall be satisfied toward the believer, toward any who hope in Him. What more happy news could reach the ear of one graciously troubled with his sin?

Our text consists of a divine testimony and commendation of the work of Christ, right from the mouth of man's judge, as efficacious to redeem his lost and needy soul. God knows the fears and unbelief of His people, and often seeks to woo them into hope. Paul tells us that he "obtained mercy" that "Jesus Christ might shew forth all longsuffering for a pattern to them which should hereafter believe on him to life everlasting." (ITim.1:16) That is, our Lord brought salvation to Paul so as to encourage the faint, by thus proving above measure the goodness and safety of His mercy by bringing it to reign in one who thirsted after Christian blood in blind passion, and thought he did God service by casting saints into prison, and thus casting their families into confusion and bitterest suffering; in one whose intention in all was nothing less than the destruction of the Christian faith. He who touches the church touches the apple of God's eye. (Zech.2:8) One would be wiser and safer to accost the bride of a prize fighter, than to accost the bride of Christ. He would find more mercy whatever other crime he might have done against him. Let him burn the prize fighters house; let him steal his car; let him sabotage his business, and he has better hopes of mercy than to touch his bride. And yet thus God makes Paul an example to the despairing soul. Thus God says to the wretched hopeless man; you may here see in Paul what sort of man I have power and will to reclaim; do not, therefore, doubt my power or will to receive the worst offenders that Adam might produce. "For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die. But God commendeth his love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." (Rom.5:6-8) Here is the truth of our text: God commending Christ to sinners, by declaring His righteous satisfaction with Christ's atonement.

Now, as was said, this propitiation was provided by the offended party. It therefore must needs be utterly free to offender. If Christ fully satisfied, then there is no satisfaction remaining for the sinner to make. It is his but to take and rejoice in thanksgiving to God for His unspeakable bounty. Thus scripture proclaims to men; "Ho, everyone that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; come ye buy, and eat; yea, come, and buy wine and milk without money and without price." Now this verse represents to us a seeming paradox --buying "without money". Now, how may one "buy without money"? How may "no money" purchase anything? What is meant by "no money"? In answering these questions let us begin by observing that the text is speaking of salvation, under the figures of "wine and milk". Let us next ask, With what do men typically attempt to purchase this salvation? Is not the answer of the scriptures, and of all experience, that men universally seek to gain salvation with their own righteousness? So, then, what is money? Righteousness. What, then, is "no money"? It is no righteousness. It is coming to God with no expectation whatever for our deeds, or, if any expectation on that account, an expectation of wrath. It is coming to God with an expectation of hope only in Himself; His goodness; His free salvation; His disposition to have pity upon the sinful and ungodly man; His own saving power, as opposed to the efficacy of our own means; but the expectation is purely in Him, and consists of an utter renouncing of every other expectation.

Thus may we "buy without money". To use a couple of earthly illustrations; suppose you went to the counter at the store to buy something, and the checker says, "fifteen dollars please". You see, dollars are currency in this economy. Now let us suppose that you give the checker a fifteen pesos bill from a failed currency; do you suppose you will have your merchandise? You might give fifteen million of such pesos, and it will no more buy you your goods than fifteen flecks of dust, because pesos are not currency there. Secondly, suppose you ransack all the state archives and gather the titles for every piece of land in your state, and take it down to the real estate office and lay them at the cashiers window. "That will be 587.6 billion dollars please." You respond, "Uh, well, ... you see.... I have no money." What if that cashier said, "Will that be all today?" "Thank you very much for your business sir." And off you go with the whole state! Now our economy does not work that way, but God's economy of gospel salvation does. So it is that we may come with an infinitely greater request than any such perishing things, even of the inheritance of eternal glory, adoption as children, and peace in Christ and it will be said, "Perfect righteousness will grant you all". And we may well answer, "I have no righteousness, but only misery, and ungodliness, and the incurable plague; but truly I would glorify the free bounty of Christ's mercy", and to him that worketh not but thus believeth on Him that justifieth the ungodly, this faith is counted for righteousness, (Rom.4:5), and he takes home all. "I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other". (Lk.18:14)

Now though this matter is every whit as facile as it has been represented, there is yet one great and overwhelming obstacle to men's receiving it. It is this: We were born into great riches in the state of nature, and can never, without the goodness of God, take upon us this state of gospel poverty. In fact, we all came into the world filthy rich; filthy rich with self-sufficiency, with more than enough such riches, in our own estimation, to pay for any treasure Heaven might contain, and to spare. The problem is that they are pesos and not dollars. Our righteousness is a failed currency from another state in God's economy of gospel salvation. Only the goodness of God can drive a man to lightly cast all this away only to become a beggar at the door of sovereign mercy, and to there say with Paul, "what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ. Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ, and be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith." (Phil.3:7-9) Only let the Christian beware lest he spend all, and begin to be in want, by turning after his old inheritance, thus building again the thing which he once destroyed. (Gal.2:14-21)

But by grace a man may be brought to feel his poverty, and to see that he has nothing to pay, and to look for pure favour, to "buy without money and without price". This disposition is that brokenness of spirit into which alone the gospel seed will take root and bring forth fruit. It is that state of felt sickness that sends men searching for the great physician. In short, it is that which compels a man to come to Christ without a price in his hand, and willing to have Him be "the surety of a better covenant". This brokenness of spirit is God's currency and well purchases anything in His kingdom that a penitent sinner might desire. Even the wine of the blood of Christ, and the milk of His word. (Lk.1:53) Come spend it if you have it; there is plenty to buy. Would you glorify God's free bounty? Then spend to your heart's content, and spend some more. Spend the remainder of your days in one heavenly shopping spree, glorifying free grace and mercy by faith in a gracious God, revealed in the promises. Come thus, sinner, and glorify God's free bounty. Did you ever hear that word, free? Did you ever really hear by the Spirit of God that freeness of His mercy? Nothing is more precious to any man. Nothing is more melting and cause for that unspeakable gratitude peculiar to those who believe. No Rothchild ever gloried over his incalculable riches as much as a saint over the riches of free grace and mercy in Jesus, so that he is allowed to behold it. How the richest magnate might envy the poorest of God's people had they any eyes! Come, Mr. Rothchild, come Mr. pauper; buy without money, and without price. The very freeness of Christ's mercy is its most alluring aspect. It is true, the mercy of Jesus Christ is free; God hath set Him forth to be a propitiation.

Secondly, "Whom God hath set forth to be a a propitiation through faith in his blood". We have hit upon it much already, but let us notice it also as a part of our text, that this propitiation is realized in the sinner through his faith in the person and work of Jesus Christ. Well, what does that mean? It means, simply, that you believe on Jesus Christ as authoritatively sent from God to reconcile Him to men through the cross, and indeed as thus an ample propitiation for so many as call upon Him. It means that you believe in Jesus as He who stood in the place of God's elect, and therefore bore their guilt and therefore their curse upon Him when he suffered upon Calvary. It means that you believe in a God reconciled to sinners by Him; and in Christ as that transcendent power and wisdom to thus reconcile a holy God to godless men. It means that you believe in a heavenly Father Who thus sent His Son into the world to redeem, and in this Son Who altogether accomplished that gracious design of His Father. Sinners thus believing are new and changed, and offer the sacrifice of praise with joy in the Holy Ghost, take salvation's cup, and call upon their God." (Ps.116:12-13)

We are considering that this propitiation is "Through faith in his blood". How, we might ask, did Christ's blood satisfy God toward the sinner such that the condemned might believe? We have already answered that question in describing how Jesus was made a surety for His people. (Heb.7:22) We have seen how he stood in the place of sinners, and therefore could not be spared. Just as the patriarchs said, "We will see what will become of his dreams" as they sold their brother Joseph into bondage; so the Pharisees spoke truth of Christ when they mocked him on the cross, saying, "He saved others; himself he cannot save." If Jesus Christ was to save His people, "Himself he could not save". The one of them must drink the cup of wrath, and therefore Christ interposes his own breast to receive the arrows of God's vengeance against His elect, because of His eternally unchangeable purpose to save them. We have considered already how that God's justice is thus manifested in the most superlative degree possible by demonstrating that it cannot yield for any consideration but by the blood of its victim, even should that victim be the worship of angels, and the maker of the worlds; even His own only most dearly beloved Son, Jesus Christ. But we may see in the unanswered prayers of Gethsemane, in this same immutable purpose to judge sin, an equally immutable purpose to save the condemned, by one and the same act. Christ prayed, "If it be possible let this cup pass from me". That is, "If it be possible to redeem thine elect without these means, let us employ that method, so that it be in accord to Thy will." But in the negative reply we may behold at one glance the inflexible holiness of God, and the piteous goodness and mercy of God; we may behold "righteousness and truth kiss each other", (Ps.85:10), for though there was no way to redeem sinners without blood, yet there was no necessity to do so beyond the naked and arbitrary will of God to take pity on the ungodly. We might all have been damned. The cross of Jesus Christ is so much a demonstration of inflexible wrath and free mercy as the most sagacious angels of Heaven were seemingly confounded by it. (IPet.1:10-12) One has written of this great conflict on the cross thus:

"Oh what a field of battle here; Vengeance and love their powers oppose! Never was such a mighty pair; Never were two such desperate foes."

If the cross manifests the inflexibility of God's justice it in the same stroke, manifests the inflexibility of His purpose to redeem a people from wrath and condemnation; and it is this combination of purposes and effects which unlocks the impregnable dungeon of man's conscience, so where before this there could no ray of hope enter, because conscience demands justice, and justice demands condemnation; yet this thick chain of hopelessness, this Gordian knot of despair, bursts asunder before Justice proclaiming Mercy in the blood of Jesus Christ, such as it answers every possible scruple conscience might suggest, and wins hope in the heart through Jesus Christ. Thus are the demands of conscience answered, the conscience itself purified and cleansed, through faith Jesus Christ as a propitiation, wherein Justice declares Mercy, and Mercy declares Justice.

Now the concern, as we said, of the genuinely afflicted soul is to have some ground of warrant in believing. He needs that which will satisfy conscience so as to give him a good answer of peace. And here, in the blood of Christ, are all of his concerns met. Justice fully met; wrath retired; and mercy founded upon it thus, and as freely as he needs it. Here he may well believe. This work of Christ is something absolutely fixed; the soul that understands it cannot possibly require more. It is "an anchor to the soul, both sure and steadfast", because it "entereth into that within the veil" and satisfies the majesty of Heaven, and the tormented conscience. It proclaims a satisfaction of the only One who has power to condemn. (Rom.8:31-39) Thus the sinner has faith in Christ as a propitiation "through faith in his blood". "Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus."

In this last clause we find a supposed ground for a highly dangerous opinion. That only men's past sins are forgiven. "Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God". We are told by some that this clause teaches us that only our past sins are forgiven in the economy of gospel salvation. Several considerations refute this belief.

First, if it is so that only past sins are forgiven in the economy of gospel salvation, then wherein is Christ's sacrifice any better than the old testament's legal sacrifices? This equalizes them, wherein Hebrews calls Christ's sacrifice the superior for the very reason here disputed. He calls the legal sacrifices insufficient upon the very ground that it left its worshippers having still a conscience of their sin. He concludes upon this ground an inferiority and inadequacy of the sacrifices upon which such limited privileges were (figuratively) merited. But of the new covenant of Christ he says, "Their sins and iniquities will I remember no more. Now where remission of these is, there is no more offering for sin". That is, where sin is remembered no more, it can only be attributed to the perfect sacrifice having been made. (Heb.10:2, 18-19) In preaching, then, a partial forgiveness, such persons preach an atonement less effectual than that of the old covenant, or even of the papists; an atonement which would have to have been repeated often, were it really so weak as they glory to make it, thus ascribing to the atonement of Christ less virtue than the blood of bulls and goats which typified it, which, under the law, were only required to be performed once in a year. The papists up this to once a week, but the Arminian must not have it be worth more than once for every sin. (Heb.9:24-10:2) Even the papist mass only debases the atonement into being necessary once every week, but these must excel all, and make Christ's atonement worth less than the legal animal sacrifices, and the weekly papist idolatry both, and the only reason men do not make it more worthless still, is that if they did it would atone for nothing at all, and could afford them no plausibility of atonement whatever. It will be objected that the Arminian view does not advocate any re-sacrifice as did the old covenant, and as do the papists, but holds that the one sacrifice is sufficient to justify men upon their meeting conditions and according to the need of the case. The obvious answer is that if an atonement does not "take away sins" such that a man is justified by it in the present, such that he "has no more conscience of sins", then his failure to repeat a sacrifice of some kind is an error on his part, for his system requires it according to this text. But this gracious benefit they deny with zeal, therefore the rest follows.

Secondly, the meaning of the text itself refutes this position. The true meaning of the text is simply that under the old dispensation many sins and transgressions had been graciously forgiven of God, Whose inflexible justice, as we have seen, could not in any way allow for clemency unless atonement was some day to be made for all. God's righteousness in showing mercy with only a typical system of atonement must some day be thus declared. But thus our text teaches: That Christ's being a propitiation declares God's righteousness for the remission of sins that were forgiven under the old dispensation. Thus teaches Heb.9:27: "And for this cause he is the mediator of the new testament, that by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first testament, they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance." Christ's death, then, "declared" the inflexible righteousness of God in making the real atonement, in anticipation of which, the former sacrifices were merely figures and types, and by virtue of which the former mercies were actually merited.

Thus is refuted this false interpretation of this text in answering the true sense of the words, "sins that are past". But Rom.3:26 continues: "To declare, I say, at this time, his righteousness, that he might be just and the justifier of him which believeth on Jesus." That is, that Christ's being a propitiation declares God's righteousness at this present time also in justifying the ungodly by faith. That the justification of Christ respects more than just past sin, we have overt passages of scripture to affirm. In the next chapter, Rom.4, we find Paul adverting to both Abraham and David as being fit examples of recipients of this grace. He cites David's testimony from Psalm 32:1: "Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man unto whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity." So we see from this that there is a man unto whom God will not impute iniquity. Nothing of times, places, circumstances, conditions, etc.. There is a man unto whom God will not impute his sin. "He hath not beheld iniquity in Jacob, neither hath he seen perverseness in Israel". (Num.23:21) Romans 7 also teaches us that saints are "dead to the law by the body of Christ". That is, that the law having only dominion over the living, has no dominion over the saint who is dead in Christ's death, (though risen again to newness of life). The law cannot condemn a dead man, when death is its only condemnation. Such a man must needs be justified of all. We learn from such texts that God justifies men. That His justification is their righteousness before Him, and establishes them in His presence. It is not part, but all their righteousness. Unless men stand at all times justified by their works, (except for Christ's supposed forgiveness of past guilt), then God's justification is something that justifies a man in the present; and if in the present then the matter of a man's justification in respect of future or past sins is superfluous, because men justified in the present are not condemned by any sin, whether anticipated as future, or known as past.

And just here is the most inexcusable aspect of this teaching; that it leaves the sinner to presently justify himself with nothing but the filthy rags of his own stinking righteousness before an infinitely holy God. Their peace must needs be small. If we are only shown mercy for sins that are past, then upon what foundation save that of works, do I now have any hope to approach unto God? And if I hope to approach unto God by my works, I have not submitted myself to the righteousness of God and am but going about to establish my own righteousness with one before whom the stars are not clean in His sight. (Rom.10:1-4, Job.25:5)

III. Conclusion

Today we have considered a salvation which is unspeakably great. "And how shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation"? We have spoken of this neglect in terms of men failing to comprehend the state of their hearts, and therefore to comprehend the whole context of a gracious salvation, or to receive it as such. But there is another form of neglect to which we have not spoken. That is the neglect of failing to receive hope in a way of spiritual faith in Jesus, though we may, after a manner, come to a point of seeing our guilty and condemned condition. Just as the Israelites could not wait for Moses to come down from the mount bringing the true revelation of God with him, but made to themselves a deity after the mold of their own desires and imaginations; so many come to a point of genuine conviction concerning their condemned condition, but before deliverance comes in the appointed way, make a god to deliver them in their own time, and so hinder, if not finally prevent, their own salvation. "They that observe lying vanities forsake their own mercy." (Jonah 2:8) It is well if you have been made to see the abominations of your heart. But have you hoped in the mercy of a pardoning God? Have you hoped in the atoning Lamb of God as satisfying the justice of Heaven against you? Have you hoped in a judge thus reconciled to you by blood? Have you hoped thus in Him? Many come as far as to see their need, but only to take false comfort in their own mental reception of these truths. Nothing, however, but that revelation of God by the Holy Spirit as a fountain of divine charity and salvation, and the heart reciprocating hope in Him as such, can constitute saving faith. Surely not everyone is always sensible of every aspect of God's dealing with them under which they pass. But you would do well to ask yourself if you have ever laid hold of the fact that God would be merciful to the ungodly, and save them for Christ's sake? Have you ever hoped in Jesus Christ thus? Did it make you rejoice? In that joy did you experience love for Jesus Christ, and His love to you? Did you wish that you could promote His interests in the earth? It is good for one to see their need of deliverance, but the question remains, Were you delivered? What a horror for a damned soul to eternally contemplate his coming so very close to the gate of mercy only to stumble at the threshold of salvation, to there build and worship an idol of his own imagination!

Perhaps this describes your case. But for the living there is hope. (Ecc.9:4) That burden of sin with which a gracious providence has caused you to be afflicted may yet be truly remedied through faith in the proclaimed satisfaction of a Saviour Who reconciled Heaven as Surety for the ungodly. "Whom God hath set forth as a propitiation through faith in his blood". Every word of God is true. Every burden may with perfect justice and safety be reposed upon these precious promises of God's provision in Christ, Whom he hath set forth as a propitiation through faith in His blood. There is simply nothing more any sinner could ask for, and it is all true. This is the truth. This is the true God. "The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, abundant in mercy and truth, Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty." (Ex.34:6-7) He will "by no means clear the guilty", but He "clears" thousands. What do we conclude, then, but that, in His abundant mercy and truth, He has power to take a man's guilt away. "As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us." (Ps.103:12) If our fears impose upon us lesser views of God's character, they impose upon us the worship of idols. It is serving a God of our own imagination, not of His revelation. This is the revelation of the true God: "The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, abundant in mercy and truth, Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty."

But what if our guilt remains? How much less will the actual offender be "cleared" if left to answer for his own sin, than Christ, who could never be "cleared" if he was to answer as surety for the sins of others? No, God will never ever thus clear the guilty, and this is as much a revelation of His character as the former. Do you have an interest in this precious saving mercy? What shall become of you if you fail to regard so great a hope of salvation; so great of promises; from so impeccable a source as from the very mouth of God? What can be in store but fiery indignation which shall devour you as an adversary to His righteous kingdom? (Heb.10:26) You will awake your dream of this life only to drink of the dregs of almighty wrath throughout an endless eternity. O for a little faith to consider it! What will it be for men to come to possess an eternal vocation of glorifying God's justice as everlasting monuments to His severity against sin, when by grace they might have been such a monument as glorified His mercy in Christ, and so both together? Does any of this matter to you? Is it not cause for your every pain until it be perfectly settled in your heart?

How long is eternity? I once read a similitude about eternity set forth thus: Suppose that the earth were all made of sand, and that a bird would fly by once in a year and carry off one grain of the sand. When the whole earth were thus removed a damned soul would be no closer to the end of his torments than the day the flames first licked his face. But let us ask, Suppose that you were in Hell and could watch this bird come yearly for its grain of sand, and at what time he had carried off the whole earth, you could be forever released from your torment. As long as an eternity as that time would seem, yet there would be this definite hope of relief. You would have the inexpressible comfort of knowing that some day you would certainly be delivered from the wrath of God. Let the bird come once every millennia, and still there is hope; indeed an exceedingly great hope. Let the bird come once ever trillion years and carry of his grain of sand, and still there is this wonderful hope that you will be one day delivered for certain from this fearful torture. But it will never be. In hell there is no such hope. One of hells greatest torments will doubtless be its hopelessness. Perhaps its greatest torment. Perhaps as great a torment will be the fact that what you suffer will only be what you rightly deserve; that you are that evil; that deserving of wrath and torment; that this unsearchable extremity of indignation is a fit dispensation for your true character. And now is God's mercy in Christ held out to such. Dark as this hour is, it is yet an hour of mercy. Now is Christ a propitiation. God has set Him forth as such. He "commendeth his love toward us" in dying for the ungodly, and in justifying the ungodly. His mercy is good. Jesus Christ is faithful and true, and "saves them to the uttermost that come unto God by Him."

And what is your state? Are you a religious man, raised in the church? Are you a young child raised in a godly home? The great danger with many of these is that their foundation of natural self-sufficiency was never overturned, and they were never brought into any genuine perception of their need. And this brings us right to where we started. If any man failed to come to Christ out of a sense of their condemnation, then they believed on Christ to redeem them from some other condition. Paul is perhaps as great an example of blamelessness without Christ as we could wish for. And yet hear his testimony concerning his impression of himself in an unrenewed state; "And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins; Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience: Among whom we all had our conversation in time past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind: and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others." Have you ever felt as though your conversation has been in the lusts of the flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature a child of wrath, even as others? I once heard a young man give a testimony in a church meeting about his conversion. Though he was more modest than most, he perhaps wanted discretion in speaking too freely of his past sins. After the meeting an older woman approached him, who had spent her life in the church, and said to him, "My, I didn't ever know that you were that wicked!" I heard this said, and thought to myself, Ma'am, what did you suppose you were when you came to Christ? I ask each one; have you ever felt "that wicked"? Many have been raised in godly homes, and are liable to find abundant matter to flatter an already inveterate human disposition to buy Heaven with the money of their righteousness. If you have never felt that you were "that wicked", then you have not yet confessed that only Jesus Christ could recommend you to a holy God. But if have not made this practical confession, you are yet in your sins, because you have never believed in Jesus as your Saviour. I would not "bruise the broken reed" by attempting to make a uniform experience the invariable rule for every conversion, yet if any has not experienced this total failure of self in any degree, he has not yet believed in Jesus for salvation. The nature of man guarantees that until he despairs of himself he is yet coming with a price in his hand, and it is failed currency in Heaven. But have you ever gone broke on this score? Have you ever bought with "no money"? Have you ever felt helpless such that you sat without hope at the pool of Bethsaida? If you cannot affirm it to be so, query yourself; what did I come to Christ to receive; and with what price in my hand?

Are you one yet completely lost and swirling down in the sink of iniquity? Let me tell you a true story. There were once three wicked comrades. One died of a drug overdose, the other was converted, and the other kept on in his sin. The converted man once went to visit the one who continued in his sin to speak with him about his lost condition. The lost man was kind, but joked about himself "finding religion", saying he would never "become religious", knowing he was so wicked. His old friend looked him deep and square in the eye and solemnly confessed to him, "My old friend, that is what I said. I was as you, as you know. You do not know the power of God, who if He will, will do with you as with me." Have you thus excluded yourself as ever "becoming religious" simply because you know yourself to be so contrary to the holiness of Jesus Christ? Jesus Christ can save you. Yes, you. It is as alarming as it is true. He reclaims such men all the time, and those you see in the church were many as you are now. Are you a bloody and selfish profligate? Have you used your vocation for selfish and mercenary principles? God gives you the example of bloody King Manassah, who "humbled himself greatly before the Lord God of his fathers, and was entreated of him". Are you a whore? Are you an adulterer? You have the example of the woman caught in adultery, to whom Jesus said, "neither do I condemn you; go and sin no more"; and of King David who was freely pardoned and made the chiefest progenitor of Messiah. Are you a sodomite? Are you a thief? Are you a murderer? Are you a liar? Are you a drunkard? Such were some of the Corinthians before their conversion. (ICor.6:11) But, after confessing this fact, Paul says to them, "But ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God." Jesus Christ did this for them, and He will do it for you. He did it then, and He does it now.

"Beneath the sacred throne of God I saw a river rise; The streams were peace and pardoning blood Descending from the skies.

"I stood amazed, and I wondered when Or how this flood arose. That wafts salvation down to men, His traitors and his foes.

"Angelic minds cannot explore This deep unfathomed sea Tis void of bottom, brim, or shore And lost in deity.

"That sacred blood from Jesus' veins Was free to take away A Mary's or Manassah's stains, Or sins more vile than they."

Free to the sinner, dead to God Who sought the road to hell, That trampled on a Saviour's blood, But on His buckler fell.

"Triumphant grace, and man's free will Shall not divide the throne; For man's a fallen sinner still, And Christ shall reign alone."

This mercy is good. "Taste and see that the Lord is good: blessed is the man that trusteth in Him." (Ps.34:8) "Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus."