When Adam sinned he was guilty of breaking a divine commandment, sin entered into his nature, and he hid himself from the presence of God. Moreover through Adam’s guilt sin entered into the world, and death by sin. Man acquired a conscience, having through sin, and in sin, the knowledge of good and evil, but was without power to do the good or forsake the evil. In mercy God excluded man from Eden, for the tree of life was there, and man could not be allowed to eat of that tree and live for ever as a sinner in a world of sin. Against this dark background God announced the coming of the Seed of the woman who, at great cost to Himself, would bruise the serpent’s head. It was a simple and clear indication that God has purposes to deal with the entry of sin into the world, and with the effects of sin.
The Day of Atonement
The sin offerings on the day of atonement (Lev. 16) pointed forward to the work of the Lord Jesus Christ, the blood of the bullock and the blood of the goat that was slain foreshadowing the great work of propitiation the secured the glory of God, and enabled Him to bless His people. On the head of the living goat the sins of the people were confessed, and the goat took them all away. This surely teaches us the truth of substitution, how that the Lord Jesus has borne our sins, and taken them all away; how He suffered for us “the Just for the unjust” to bring us to God.
Forgiveness and Remission
When the Lord Jesus was on earth He spoke forgiveness to sinners, for He had indeed power on earth to forgive sins, and He knew of the work that He was about to accomplish that would vindicate God in forgiving those who had sinned against Him. After the Lord Jesus had died the word of forgiveness was preached in the Gospel, so that the Apostle Paul could write to the saints, “In whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace” (Eph. 1:7). Whether our sins are viewed as transgressions against God’s commandments, or as offences against His majesty, through faith in His Son our sins are forgiven.
Remission has to do with releasing us from the obligation to which our sins have committed us, and the Scripture says, “without the shedding of blood there is no remission” (Heb. 9:22). Of this the Lord spoke to His disciples in Matthew 26:28, saying, “This is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.” This was the Gospel Peter preached to Jew and Gentile, as is seen in Acts 2:38; 10:43. It was also the teaching of the Apostle Paul, who also showed that the blood of Christ was the witness of God’s righteousness in remitting the sins of the faithful in past generations before the Lord Jesus came (Rom. 3:25).
Justification
God is not only able to forgive and remit the sins of those who believe in His Son, but He can also justify them, that is to clear them judicially from every charge of guilt. The foundation of this is the death of God’s Son, even as it is written, “Being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 3:24). The death of Jesus vindicates God in clearing the one who believes in Jesus, even as we read, “To declare, at this time His righteousness: that He might be just, and the justifier of him which believes in Jesus” (Rom. 3:26).
Man has no righteousness of His own in which to appear before God, yet God sets the repentant sinner who has faith in Christ before His face in a righteousness that is perfectly acceptable, for it is His own righteousness. Of this the Apostle Paul wrote, “For He has made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Cor. 5:21). Paul delighted in this for himself, as he tells us in Philippians 3, “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” (verses 8, 9).
Reconciliation
The sin of man not only made him guilty, and a sinner in his nature, but put him at a distance from God, and made him an enemy of God. Christ’s death has also dealt with this for the believer, for the Scripture says, “when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son” (Rom. 5:10). We have been brought into right relations with God, the death of Christ having brought us near to Him, and the love manifested in that death driving the enmity from our hearts. The prodigal son gives a beautiful illustration of the reconciliation of a sinner, as does also David’s bringing Mephibosheth from the distance to sit continually at his table as one of the king’s sons.
When the Son of God was on earth God’s attitude to the world was in grace, seeking to reconcile it to Himself, but the world refused God’s overtures, manifesting its incorrigible state of enmity to God. That enmity was displayed in crucifying God’s Son, but God took the occasion of man’s wickedness to secure the means of reconciling those who believe in His Son. Now in the Gospel the word of grace is, “be ye reconciled to God” (2 Cor. 5:18–20). Believers know the blessedness of nearness to God now, as shown by Paul in Colossians 1:21-22, and by Peter in 1 Peter 3:18.
Cleansing
Cleansing is connected with both water and blood in Scripture. Where it is cleansing from the state of defilement in which we are as derived from Adam, or from the defilement contracted in our journey through the wilderness, it is cleansing by water, as is seen in being born of water in John 3, and the feet washing of John 13, and other Scriptures. In 1 John 1 we have cleansing by blood, for “the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.” This tells of the abiding efficacy of the blood of Jesus. There is no need for any second application of the blood, any more than for the repetition of the sacrifice, for the blood cleanses from all sin.
There is also cleansing from unrighteousness, as we have in this same chapter, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (verse 9). When there is failure with the Christian there is the need of confession for forgiveness, but sin also defiles, and we need to be cleansed. From the side of Christ there was not only blood, but also water, and this later brings the moral purification that can remove defilement. Defilement under the law required various cleansings, sometimes it was the flesh bathed in water, sometimes the garments required washing, and when any were defiled through contact with death there had to be the application of the water of separation (Num. 19).
In Revelation 1:5 the song of the redeemed is “Unto Him that loves us, and washed us from our sins in His own blood.” Here it is from the defilement that was needed when we trusted the Saviour, and when He forgave us our sins. Again in Revelation 7:14 we learn of a company of the redeemed “which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.”
God Glorified
How greatly God has been glorified in the work of the Lord Jesus Christ upon the cross. Through the obedience of the Son of God even unto death, the Lord could say, “Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in Him” (John 13:31). God’s glory that shines in the new covenant, is seen in the face of Jesus where He sits at His right hand (2 Cor. 3:9; 4:6). In anticipation of the cross the Son said to the Father, “I have glorified Thee on the earth, I have finished the work which Thou gavest me to do” (John 17:4).
Sin in the Flesh Condemned
Man was under trial until the cross, and the nature of man, into which the principle of sin had entered through the fall, had been proved to be incorrigible. In innocency man had fallen, and acquired his sinful nature, and under government with Noah as head, man had shown he could not control himself. Without law, and under law, the flesh had been proved rebellious and corrupt, and the last test was when God in grace sent His Son. In the rejection of the Son of God the flesh showed its dreadful ruin, and that it was impossible to improve it. Man has tried all kinds of things in the hope of putting this world right, but all his attempts have but confirmed God’s judgment of the flesh, the corrupt nature of man.
It was when the flesh in man was thoroughly exposed in its treatment of the Son of God that God intervened to show what He thought of the evil nature of man. The law could do nothing with the flesh, “it was weak through the flesh,” so God “sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, (by sacrifice for sin) condemned sin in the flesh. To do this the Son of God became man. He was absolutely pure and holy, like any other man in outward appearance, in the likeness of sinful flesh, but not having sinful flesh. The brazen serpent was like a serpent, but it had not the sting of a serpent. How very solemn it is that it was when the Son of God was on the cross that God condemned the sin that is in our nature, telling us that He saw no good in it, and therefore brought it to an end in judgment.
“He died unto sin once”
When the Lord Jesus died upon the cross He was finished with the life that belongs to sinners. In grace He had come among sinners with the wondrous grace of God, and on the cross had died for sinners, and to condemn sin in the flesh. Himself altogether sinless, He moved among men who were so unlike Him, being sinners by nature and practice, before being taken by the wicked hands of sinners, and crucified and slain. Having come out of death the Lord Jesus lives in an entirely new kind of life, “for in that He died, He died unto sin once: but in that He lives, He lives unto God” (Rom. 6:10). In resurrection Christ has entered into entirely new conditions of life where His own can be associated with Him, as having died with Him.
As having been baptized, we are associated with Christ in death, so that “we also should walk in newness of life” (Rom. 6:4). We are not viewed as risen with Christ in Romans, “but we shall also live with Him” (Rom. 6:8-11), and “we shall also be of His resurrection” (verse 5). If Christ has died to sin, it is our privilege to reckon ourselves “to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord” (verse 11). It is as having the life of Christ risen from the dead that we can live for God in this world.
“He appeared to put away sin”
How wonderful are the ways of God! If He allowed, in His wisdom, sin to invade His universe, He had the resource in Christ to take it away, but it was at infinite cost to Himself and to His own beloved Son, for nothing less than the sacrifice of Christ could accomplish this great work. This is one of the great aspects of the death of Christ. In Christ’s death there has been the judicial removal of sin from before the eye of God, so that when He returns to this world it will not be to deal sacrificially with sin again, but for the salvation of those who are blessed through His great work upon the cross (Heb. 9:26–28).
God has taken the occasion of sin entering this world to deal with it in its totality. Sin was in the universe before the devil seduced our first parents, “for the devil sins from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested that He might destroy the works of the devil” (1 John 3:8), and the basis has been laid in Christ’s death for the ultimate and complete removal of sin and its effects from the wide universe of God.
“The sin of the world”
When John Baptist saw Jesus he said, “Behold the Lamb of God, which takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). Sin has not only been removed judicially from before God’s eye by the sacrifice of the Lamb of God, but in the coming day the Lamb will remove sin as an active principle from the world. In Revelation 5 we see Jesus standing, “a Lamb as it has been slain” (Rev. 5:6), and it as such He is worthy and able to take the book and to break its seven seals. He only can dispense the judgments for the removal of sin, and introduce God’s purpose for the blessing of men in this world.
The redeemed of heaven are already blessed, and are able to sing the song that proclaims Jesus as the worthy One. His precious blood has given them title to be in heaven, and they are able to enter into the mind of God in regard to the blessing of others. His title to take the book is “for Thou wast slain, and hast redeemed to God by Thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation” (Rev. 5:9).
When sin has ultimately been taken away in the power of Christ the new scene will be introduced, where all things are new, where “God shall wipe away all tears,” and where “there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away” (Rev. 21:4-5). What a wonderful contemplation for our hearts that sin shall be banished from the fair universe of God, and an entirely new order of things shall come into which sin cannot enter, and all that is new is founded on the work of the Lamb who died to take away sin by the sacrifice of Himself.
R. 25.1.69