People are generally self-righteousness, and some do not even like to hear the word sin, or if some do they think lightly of it and some as if it almost a play thing. However when once a person feels the reality of their condition before God, with something of its ruinous depths, guilt, misery, and hopeless bankruptcy, there can be no rest until the God’s perfect remedy is found. God, Who is holy, could not overlook sin because that would be unjust but neither could He pretend that we had not sinned because that would be a lie. However there is a perfect assured remedy, and that it is not found in a religion but is found in a relationship with a Person, Jesus Christ. He is God’s all-sufficient Saviour, for our very deepest need. The true secret of underlying peace is to get to the very end of our guilty, ruined, helpless, worthless self, and then find the all-sufficient Saviour, Jesus Christ.
God says in His Word, the Bible: “All we like sheep have gone astray; We have turned, every one, to his own way; And the LORD {God} has laid on Him {Jesus Christ} the iniquity {self will} of us all” (Isaiah 53:6) and “Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures.” (1 Corinthians 15:3-4). Also “For Christ also suffered once for sins, {He} the just for {us} the unjust, that He might bring us to God.” (1Peter 3:18) {mine}.
Just as an apple tree produces apples so our nature of sin within produces sins of varying degrees in our thoughts, words and deeds. Our nature of sin has caused all of us to go astray from God and our natural capacity is to turn people to do things “my way”. 1John 4:14 says “And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son as Saviour of the world.” Also Isaiah 9:6 “For unto us a Child is born, Unto us a Son is given.” {italics mine}. Just as someone has to exist before they are sent anywhere so Jesus Christ was characteristically the Son of God in His everlasting existence in heaven before He became a man. When a man, Jesus Christ lived a perfect life but was crucified and while on the cross became the sacrifice when God judged Him for sins. Consequently God offers a full and free forgiveness to all Who repent of their sin and believe that the Lord Jesus died in their stead. “That whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life” (John 3:16). “To Him all the prophets witness that, through His name, whoever believes in Him will receive remission of sins” (Acts 10:43).
So Jesus Christ stood charged with all our sins and has borne the punishment of them all so that they can be put away for ever. This all-important truth for the anxious sinner is the very foundation of God’s salvation. It is impossible that any conscience can enjoy divinely-settled peace until this really precious truth is believed. Has God put away all sins out of His sight in such a way that satisfies His holy nature? The heart of the whole matter is that God has laid the believer’s sins on Jesus and He says so in the Bible, so that we may know it upon Divine authority. By the very same authority, which tells me I have sins whose judgment must be borne also says in 1Peter 2:24 says, “Who {Christ v21} his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree {which is a picture of Calvary’s cross}.”
God, in His marvellous and matchless love, assures a poor guilty, hell-deserving sinner, who has trusted in Christ for salvation, that He has Himself undertaken the whole matter of their sins. I, a sinner know that my sins are more in number than the hairs of my head. I know that any one of these sins, deserves the eternal judgment of God. I know because God’s word says that a single speck of sin can never enter His holy presence in Revelation 21:27 “But there shall by no means enter it {God’s eternal city} anything that defiles, or causes an abomination or a lie.” So for my sins there is no possible result, except eternal separation from God.
However since God has satisfied Himself about my sins, I can be satisfied also. This is the profound love of God at the cross! God Himself took all my sins, in all their terrible categories as He knew them, and He laid them all on Jesus Christ and judged Him for them. All the waves of God’s righteous anger against my sins, which should judge me, soul and body, in hell throughout a dreadful eternity, were all poured over Jesus Christ, Who stood in my stead and was judged as a holy God should judge me.
The Bible says, “For I am the LORD, I change not.” (Malachi 3:6) and so at the cross consistent and inflexible justice, holiness and truth, dealt with sins, to make a clear and eternal riddance of them. Not one of them passed unnoticed. There is no connivance, slurring over, indifference to nor relieving, of the judgment. Once God Himself took the matter in hand, His glory was at stake. Therefore His unsullied holiness, His eternal majesty, the lofty claims of His government could not be compromised in any way.
God should have justly sent any sinner to hell because our sins deserved nothing else. I have not a word to say in excuse for a single sinful thought, word or deed and to say nothing of a sin-stained life of deliberate and rebellious sin of varying degrees. A single sin, cost Adam and Eve exclusion from God’s presence, and it was the Holy, Eternal and Almighty Son of God, Jesus Christ, Who on the cross who took the judgment for our sins. Consequently I deserved everlasting punishment in the deep, dark, dreadful and dismal pit of hell, but the amazing God of all grace, instead of sending us to hell without a remedy He sent His Son to be the mercy seat for those sins.
With His great salvation plan the holy God dealt with the question of our sins, and executing judgment upon them by judging His well-beloved and eternal Son, “… but now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself” (Hebrews 9:26). If this be received simply by faith, this can give peace to the conscience! God says to Christians in Hebrews 10:15 “But the Holy Spirit also witnesses to us” and finishes the quotation in v17 with, “Their sins and their lawless deeds (i.e. iniquities) I will remember no more.” It is not that God forgets our various sins but that He makes the conscious decision to not remember them. What could we desire further as a basis of peace for our conscience?
But What Does God Mean by Saving Faith?
Salvation and peace with God is not arrived at by “trying” but by “trusting”/“believing”. Not trying to be personally good, but “trusting” the goodness and sufficiency of Another, that is Christ. Saving faith is simply “trust” based upon a knowledge of what God has done through Jesus Christ. It is to understand that God sent His Son into the world to be the sinner’s substitute, to bear in His own body the punishment and wrath of God due to the guilty and disobedient sinner. Firstly, you need to give up all hope of being saved by any works we can perform or any merit we may hope to win from God. Then realize that Christ has offered an all-sufficient sacrifice for all sins which has been accepted by God, and that His work is finished! Then in wholehearted repentance you must turn from your sin and believe that Christ died to save you from the judgement for all your sins, which means that His sacrifice applies to me personally and so at the point of faith He becomes your personal Saviour. This is to call upon His Name knowing “that whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved” (Romans 10:13).
Christ was the One who had by His death accomplished the glorious work of salvation. He was the One Who had stood charged with the full weight of our sins and He was the One who had perfectly satisfied all the righteous claims of God’s throne on which He now sits as Revelation 3:21 says “… I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne.” This important and great point is for the anxious reader to seize and believe. It can emancipate the heart, and give peace to the conscience. We cannot possibly trust in the Man who was nailed to the tree and now is crowned on God’s throne, and not have peace with God. The Lord Jesus Christ, had taken upon Himself our sins, and the judgment due to them. He could not be in heaven now if a single one of those sins remained unjudged. To understand that the sin-bearer is crowned with glory is to see the believer’s sins gone for ever from the Divine presence. Where are our sins? They are all obliterated. How do we know this? Hebrews 9:26 says “… but now, once at the end of the ages, He has appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself.” The One who took all our sins upon Himself has passed through the heavens and to the very highest pinnacle of glory as Hebrews 10:12 says, “But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God.” The Accomplisher of salvation or the Bearer of our sins therefore proves for the believer in Him, and beyond all possibility of a question, that our sins are all put away out of God’s sight for ever. A crowned Christ, and a clear conscience, are, inseparably linked together through God’s amazing grace, i.e. His undeserved favour.