Feb 20
10
“The church of God, which he has purchased with his own blood.” Acts 20:28
J.C.Philpot
Atonement for sin stands or falls with the Deity of Christ. If we deny
his Deity, we must deny the atonement, for what value or merit can there
be in the blood of a mere man that God, for its sake, should pardon
millions of sins? This the Socinians clearly see, and therefore deny the
atonement altogether. But if there be no atonement, no sacrifice, no
atoning sacrifice for sin, where can we look for pardon and peace?
Whichever way we turn our eyes there is despair.
But when by the eye of faith we see the Son of God obeying the law,
rendering, by doing and dying, acting and suffering, a satisfaction to
the violated justice of the Most High and offering a sacrifice for sin,
then we see such a glory and such a value breathing through every
thought, word, and action of his suffering humanity, that we embrace him
and all that he is and has, with every desire and affection of our
regenerated soul. All our religion lies here; all our faith, hope, and
love flow unto, and are, as it were, fixed and concentrated in Jesus
Christ, and him crucified; and without a measure of this in our heart
and conscience, we have no religion worth the name, nothing that either
saves or sanctifies–nothing that delivers from the guilt, filth, love,
power, and practice of sin–nothing that supports in life, comforts in
death, or fits for eternity.
The way, then, whereby we come to a knowledge of, and a faith in, the
Deity of Christ is first by feeling a need of all that he is as a
Savior, and a great one, and then having a manifestation of him by the
blessed Spirit to our soul. When he is thus revealed and brought near,
we see, by the eye of faith, his pure and perfect humanity and his
eternal Deity; and these two distinct natures we see combined, but not
intermingled, in one glorious Person, Immanuel, God with us. Until thus
favored we may see the Deity of Christ in the Scriptures, and have so
far a belief in it, but we have not that personal appropriating faith
whereby, with Thomas, we can say, “My Lord and my God.”