First Benefit Purchased by Christ: The Forgiveness of Sins
“In whom we have redemption through his blood, thie forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace.” Hpu. 1:7.
Srx great motives have been presented from the titles of Christ to draw the hearts of sinners to him; more are now to be offered from the benefits purchased for believers by Christ, by all means to win the hearts of men to him. To this end I shall, in the first place, open that glorious privilege of gospel-remassion freely and fully conferred upon all that come to Christ by faith, “in whom we have redemption through his blood.”
1. In these words we have a singular benefit or choice mercy bestowed, namely, redemption, or the remission of sins: this is a privilege of the first rank, none more desirable among all the benefits that come by Christ. And therefore,
2. We have the price of this mercy, even the blood of Christ: “In whom we have redemption, through his blood.” Precious things are of great price; the blood of Christ is the meritorious cause of remission.
3. We have here also the zmpulswve cause, moving God to grant pardon to sinners, and that is said to be “the riches of his grace;’ where, by the way you see that the freeness of the grace of God and the fulness of the sgatisfaction of Christ meet together without the least jar in the remission of sin, contrary to the vain cavil ot the Socinian adversaries, “In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace.”
4. We have the subjects of this blessed privilege, namely, believers, in whose name he here speaks: “We have redemption;” that is, the saints and faithful in Christ Jesus, verse 1; we whom God hath chosen in Christ, before the foundation of the world, and predestinated unto the adoption of children, verse 4, 5; we that are made accepted in the Beloved, verse 6. Such, and such only have redemption through his blood. Hence,
All believers, and none but believers, receive the remission of their sins through the riches of grace, by the blood of Jesus Christ.
In the illustration of this point we shall show that all who are in Christ are in a pardoned state; that their pardon is the purchase of the blood of Christ; and that the riches of grace are manifested in remission.
J. ALL WHO ARE IN CHRIST ARE IN A PARDONED STATE. And here I will first show what pardon or remission of sin is, and then that this is the privilege of none but believers.
1. Remission of sin is the gracious act of God, m and through Christ, discharging a believing sinner from all the guilt and punishment of his sin, both temporal and eternal.
It is the act of God. None can forgive sins but God only. Mark 2:7. Against him only, that is, principally and especially, the offence is committed. Psalm 51: 4. To his judgment guilt binds over the soul; and who can remit the debt but the creditor? Matt. 6:12
It is an act of God discharging the sinner. God’s loosing one that stood bound, the cancelling of his obligation is therefore called remission or releasing in the text; the blotting out of our iniquities, or the removing of our sins from us, as it is called in other scriptures. See Psalm 103: 12 Micah 7: 18, 19.
It is a gracious act of God, the effect of pure grace done for his own name’s sake. Isaiah 43:25. Discharging us without any satisfaction at all by us; there is much grace in this. Providing a surety for us every way able to pay our debt; there is still more grace in that.
It is the gracious act of God im and through Christ. The satisfaction of Christ is the procuring cause of our remission, and so God declares himself just in the remission of our sin. Rom. 3: 25. “Gracious is the Lord, and righteous.” Psalm 116:5. Justice and mercy meet here and embrace each other, “‘in whom we have redemption;” no other price could purchase this privilege, not rivers of oil or of human blood. Micah 6:6, 7. And this gracious act of God discharges the pardoned son! both from guilt and punishment. Acts 13: 38, 39.
2. That this remission of sin is the privilege of believers is most apparent, for all the causes of remission are in union to procure it for them: the love ot God, which is the impulsive cause of pardon; the blood of Christ, which is the meritorious cause of pardon; and saving faith, which is the instrumental cause of pardon, all cooperate for their remission, as is plain in the text. Besides, all the promises of pardon are made to them. Jer. 31:34; Micah 7:19. And lastly, all the signs of pardon are found in them, and in them only, that love God, Luke 7:47; such as mercy to others, Matt. 6:14, a blessed peace in the conscience. Rom.5:1. It is a truth beyond controversy, that all that are in Christ are in a pardoned state.
Il. The pardon of believers is THE PURCHASE OF THE BLOoD oF Curist. Nothing but the blood of Christ is equivalent to the remission of sin, for this blood was innocent, the blood of a Lamb without spot, 1 Peter 1:19; this blood was precious blood, of infinite worth and value, the blood of God. Acts 20:28. It was prepared for this very purpose, Heb. 10:5; prepared by God’s eternal appointment; by Christ’s miraculous production through the operation of the Spirit; by his voluntary sanctification of himself to this very use and purpose.
The blood of Jesus is not only innocent, precious, and prepared, but it is blood actually shed and sacrificed to the justice of God for the expiation of guilt and procurement of our discharge. Isaiah 53:5. The justice of God could put in no exception against the blood of Christ, it is unexceptionable, being untainted by sin, and dignified above all estimation by the person whose blood it was. Justice required no less, and could demand no more; and this is the price at which our pardon is purchased, and without which no sin could be pardoned; for “without shedding of blood there is no remission.” Heb. 9: 22.
III. God has manifested Tue rIcHEs oF HIS GRACE in the remission of our sins. So says the apostle, ‘“‘Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound.” Rom. 5: 20. “The grace of our Lord was exceeding abundant,” 1 Tim. 1:14; which will appear, if we bring our thoughts to the matter, in several particulars,
1. From the nature of the mercy, which is the richest of all mercies, except Christ the purchaser of it. No mercy sweeter than a pardon to a condemned sinner; no pardon like God’s pardon to a man condemned at his bar; all the goodness of God is made to pass before our eyes in his pardoning acts of grace. Exod. 33:19.
2. The very riches of grace must be in the pardon of sin, if we consider the methed in which pardons are dispensed, which is, as the text speaks, “through his blood.” Herein God commends his love to us. Rom. 5:8. He commends it more than if he had pardoned sin without such a sacrifice; for then he had only displayed his mercy, but not caused mercy and justice to meet and triumph together.
3. The riches of his grace shine forth in the peculearity of the mercy. Remission is no common favor; it is never extended to the fallen angels, nor to the greater part of the children of men, but only to a little flock, a small remnant of mankind. Luke 12:32; John 17:3.
4. The riches of grace are manifested in remission, if we consider the swdyects of this privilege, who are not oniy equally plunged into sin and misery with others by nature, Eph. 2:38, but many of them, in sins after conversion, have been guilty of a deeper-dyed abomination than many unpardoned ones. “To me,” saith Paul, “who was before a blasphemer, and a persecutor, and injurious; but I obtained mercy.” 1 Tim.1:13. “And such were some of you, but ye are washed.” 1 Cor.6:11. Yes; God singles out the most base, despised, poor, and contemptible ones among men to be the subjects of this glorious privilege. 1 Cor. 1: 26.
5. Still more of the riches of grace appear, if we view the extent of this act of grace. O how innumerable are our transgressions! ‘‘Who can understand his errors?” Psalm 19:12. Yet the blood of Christ cleanses us from all sin. 1 John 1:7. Small and great sins, open and secret sins, old and new sins, all pardoned without exception. O the riches of grace! O the unsearchable goodness of God! ‘With the Lord there is mercy, and with him there is plenteous redemption; and he shall redeem Israel from all his iniquities.” Psalm 130: 1, 8.
6. The riches of grace shine forth in the perpetucty of remission. As grace pardons all sins without exception, so the pardons it bestows are without revocation. The pardoned soul shall “never come into condemnation.” John 5:24. “As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us.” Psalm 103:12. The east and the west are the two opposite points of heaven, which can never come together; neither shall the pardoned soul and its sins ever meet any more. Thou hast cast, says Hezekiah, all my sins behind thy back. The penitent believer sets his sins before his face, but the merciful God casts them all behind his back, never to behold them more, so as to charge them upon his pardoned people. Thus you see what the pardon of sin is, what the price that purchaseth pardon is, and what riches of grace God manifests in the remission of a believer’s sins; which were the things to be explained.
Inrerence 1. If it be so that all believers, and none but believers, receive the remission of their sins through the riches of grace by the blood of Christ, what a happy condition are believers im! Those that never felt the load of sin may make light of pardon; but so cannot you who have been in the deeps of trouble and fear about it: those that have been upon the rack of a condemning conscience, as David, Heman, and many of the saints have been, can never sufficiently value a pardon. “Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered; blessed is the man unto whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity;” or, as in the Hebrew, O the blessedness and felicities of the pardoned man! Psalm 32:1, 2.
Remission cannot but appear the wonder of mercies, if we consider through what difficulties the grace of God makes way for it to our souls — what strong bars the love of God breaks asunder to open our way to this privilege; for there can be no pardon without a Mediator — no other Mediator but the Son of God. The Son of God cannot discharge our debts; but by taking them upon himself as our surety, and making full payment by bearing the wrath of God for us; and when all this is done, there can be no actual pardon except the Spirit of grace open our blind eyes, break our hard hearts, and draw them to Christ in the way of believing. And as the mercy of remission comes to us through wonderful difficulties, so it is in itself a complete and perfect mercy: God would not be at such vast expense of the riches of his grace; Christ would not lay out the invaluable treasures of his precious blood, to procure a cheap and common blessing for us. Rejoice then, ye pardoned souls; God has done great things for you, for which you have cause to be glad. Hence it follows,
—2. That interest in Christ by farth brings the conscience of a believer into a state of peace. ‘‘ Being justified by faith, we have peace with God.” Rom. 5:1. ‘I say not that every believer is presently brought into actual peace of conscience; there may be many fears and much trouble even in a pardoned soul; but this is an undoubted truth, that faith brings the pardoned soul into the condition and state where he may find perfect rest in his conscience with respect to the guilt and danger of sin. The blood of Christ sprinkles us from an evil, that is, an accusing, condemning conscience. We are apt to fear that this or that special sin which has most terrified our conscience is not forgiven; but if there are riches enough in the grace of God, and efficacy enough in the blood of Christ, the sins of believers, without limitation or exception, are pardoned.
If Christ remits no sin to any man but with respect to his blood, then all sins are pardoned, as well as any one sin; because the dignity and worth of that blood is infinite, and as much deserves pardon for all sins, as the particular pardon of any, even the least sin. Moreover, remission is an act of God’s fatherly love in Christ; and if it be so, certainly no sin of any believer can be excluded from pardon; for then the same soul would be in the favor of God so far as it is pardoned, and out of favor with God so far as it is unpardoned, and all this at one and the same time, which is a thing repugnant to itself and to the whole strain of the gospel. What is the design and end of remission, but the saving of the pardoned soul? But if any sin be excluded from pardon, the retaining of that sin must make void the pardon of all other sins; and so the acts of God must cross and contradict each other, and the design and end of God miscarry and be lost, which can never be. So then we conclude, faith brings the believing soul into a state of rest and peace. Hence,
3. Vo remission is to be expected by any soul without an enterest by faith mm Jesus Christ. No Christ, no pardon; no faith, no Christ. Yet how apt are many poor deluded souls to expect pardon in a way in which never any soul yet did or ever can meet it. Some look for pardon from the absolute mercy of God, without any regard to the blood of Christ: ‘“We have sinned, but God is merciful!” Some expect remission of sin by virtue of their own duties: ‘I have sinned, but I will repent, restore, reform, and God will pardon!” Little do such men know how they therein diminish the evil of sin, undervalue the justice of God, slight the blood of Christ, and cheat their own souls for ever. To expect pardon from absolute mercy, or from our own duties, is to knock at the wrong door, which God has shut up to all the world. Rom.3:20. While these two principles abide firm, that the price of pardon is only in the blood of Christ, and the benefit of pardon only by the application of his blood to us, this must remain a sure conclusion, that no remission is to be expected by any soul without an interest by faith in Jesus Christ. Repentance, restitution, and reformation are excellent duties in their proper place, but they were never meant for sayiors, or a satisfaction to God for sin.
4, If the riches of grace be thus manifested in the pardon of sin, how vile an abuse is rt of the grace of God to take the more liberty to sun, because grace abounds m the pardon of 1.
‘Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? God forbid.” Rom. 6:1, 2. Will nothing else than the grace of God serve to make a cloak for sin? O vile abuse of the most excellent thing in the whole world! Did Christ shed his blood to expiate our guilt, and dare we make that a plea to extenuate our guilt? God forbid. If it be intolerable ingratitude among men to requite good with evil, sure that sin must want a name bad enough to express it, which puts the greatest dishonor upon God for the greatest mercy that ever was given to the world. “There is forgiveness with thee, that thou mayest be feared,” Psalm 130: 4, not that thou mayest be the more abused. Nay, let me say, the devils never sinned at this rate; they cannot abuse the pardoning grace of God, because such grace was never offered them. And certainly, if the abuse of the common mercies of God, as meat and drink, by gluttony and drunkenness, be a heinous sin, and highly provoking to God, the abuse of the riches of his grace, and the precious blood of his Son, must be out of measure sinful.
5. If this be so, as ever you expect pardon and mercy from God, come to Christ in the way of faith; receive and embrace him now in the tenders of the gospel.
To enforce this exhortation, I beseech you, as in the bowels of Christ Jesus, and by all the regard and value you have for your souls, let the following considerations sink down in your hearts.
That all Christless persons are actually wnder the condemnation of God. “He that believeth not is condemned already,” John 3:18; and it must be so, for every soul is concluded under the curse of the law till Christ make him free. John 8:36. Till we are in Christ we are dead by law; and when we believe unto justification, then we pass from death to life. A blind mistaken conscience may possibly acquit you, but be assured, God condemns you.
Consider what a terrible thing wz is to lie under the condemnation of God. The most terrible things in nature cannot shadow forth the misery of such a state: put all sickness, poverty, reproaches, the torments invented by all tyrants into one scale, and the condemnation of God into the other, and they will be all found lighter than a feather. Condemnation is the sentence of the great and terrible God; it is a sentence shutting you up to everlasting wrath; it is a sentence never to be reversed but by application to Christ in season. O souls, you cannot bear the wrath of God. You do not understand it if you think it tolerable. One drop of it upon your conscience now is enough to distract you in the midst of all the pleasures and comforts of this world; yet all that are out of Christ are sentenced to the fulness of God’s wrath for ever.
There is yet a possibility of escaping the wrath to come; a door of hope is opened to the worst of sinners; a day of grace is offered to the children of men. Heb. 38:15. God declares himself unwilling that any should perish. 2 Pet. 3:9. O what a mercy is this! Who that is on this side eternity fully understands the worth of it?
The door of mercy will be shortly shut. Luke 18: 25. God has many ways to shut it: he sometimes shuts it by withdrawing the means of grace and removing the candlesticks; a judgment at this time to be greatly feared. Sometimes he shuts it by withdrawing the Spirit from the means, whereby all ordinances lose their efficacy. 1 Cor. .8:7. But if he shut it not by removing the means of grace from you, certain it is it will be shortly shut by your removal from all the opportunities of salvation by death.
When once the door of mercy is shut, you are gone beyond all the possibilities of pardon and salvation for evermore. The night is then come, in which no man can work. John 9:4. All the golden seasons you now enjoy will be irrecoverably gone out of your reach.
Pardons are now daily granted to others. Some who were once as far from mercy as you now are, are reading their pardons with tears of joy. The world is full of instances of the riches of pardoning grace. O therefore lift up your cries to heaven; give the Lord no rest, take no denial till he open the blind eye, break the stony heart, bow the stubborn will, effectually draw thy soul to Christ, and deliver thy pardon signed with his blood.